Utopiae Insulae Figura: Utopian Insularity and the Politics of Form
This essay is informed by the premise that critical reflection on the figure of insularity can only begin with a reflexive turn to the homologies which mutually implicate the ostensible subject and object of such reflection. Taking utopian discourse as an emblematic illustration of the ways in which...
محفوظ في:
| الحاوية / القاعدة: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/transtexts, |
|---|---|
| المؤلف الرئيسي: | |
| التنسيق: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| اللغة: | Anglais |
| منشور في: |
Transtext(e)s Transcultures
2009
|
| الوصول للمادة أونلاين: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| الملخص: | This essay is informed by the premise that critical reflection on the figure of insularity can only begin with a reflexive turn to the homologies which mutually implicate the ostensible subject and object of such reflection. Taking utopian discourse as an emblematic illustration of the ways in which insularity extends well beyond the realm of the referent, insinuating itself in the very conception of the utopian imagination, I outline the ways in which utopian discourse in the early modern era thinks “with,” rather than merely “about,” insular space. In effect, I argue, the analysis of utopian discourse’s deployment of insularity necessitates a move beyond the traditional hermeneutic binaries of “form” and “content,” “interiority” and “exteriority,” “autonomy” and “heteronomy,” “utterance” and “enunciating instance.” Both formalist and socio-historical readings of the utopian text are used to demonstrate that the insulae figura is rifted by a series of contradictions—spatial as well as ideological—that prevent it from ever coinciding, circularly and tautologically, with itself. |
|---|