Literary Theory and the Challenges of the Present

Vladimir Biti, Tracing Global Democracy: Literature, Theory, and the Politics of Trauma. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. 2016, 394 pp

Croatian Leftist Critique and the Object of American Studies

The article argues that one possible way of understanding the United States at the disposal of American Studies scholars working in the region of ex-Yugoslavia is by retrieving the leftist critique as it was articulated by members of the Croatian Praxis writers. The author begins with the contention that the prevailing representations of the United States today present it as the exemplary country of capitalism. Arguing that extant Americanist paradigms let this reality slip under their screen, he goes back to the said leftist critique and reads how they provide a conceptual frame with which to engage the United States. He elaborates this frame in three ways: first, he recalls the Praxis group’s engagement with the United States when the journal was being published; second, he draws attention to Vanja Sutlić’s and Ivan Kovačić’s pronouncements on the United States as the exemplary capitalist country; and third, he foregrounds the Praxis group’s Marxist engagement with Heidegger. It is this engagement that the author contends is of particular relevance for understanding the present mutation of capitalism and the place of the United States in the contemporary world. In conclusion, the author argues that a reading of the United States through Marx and Heidegger repositions the work of William Spanos within the archive of the discipline

What Goes on behind Mason and Dixon’s Backs in Pynchon’s Novel?

The departure point of this article is the author’s opinion that every new encounter with a previously read text provides an occasion on which to re-think the act of reading, and to question disciplinary knowledge. After a brief description of his earlier reading of Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, which was focused on the issue of territoriality, the author begins his description of his latest encounter with the text by indicating the context in which it occurs, and concludes that in his first reception of the book he failed to note what he now recognizes as the novel’s core theme. Designating Pynchon’s economic thematics as that core, he analyzes it and shows how it produces a number of epiphanic moments in the text. In his conclusion, the author argues that the description of these epiphanic moments, or of what takes place behind the backs of Pynchon’s protagonists, can be articulated if one incorporates certain discursive procedures from Karl Marx’s writings into the analysis

Moć mjesta: primjer zapada Irske

The article deals with the spatial practice whereby nations privilege certain locales in constructing and representing their identity. This strategy is illustrated by an analysis of the function of the west of Ireland both during the process of decolonisation and in the later period of state formation. Later in his argument the author shows, using examples from literature, how this practice is not uncontested but is criticized by oppositional voices within the cultural archive. In the conclusion the author delineates the role of the west in the Irish tourist industry.U članku se opisuje spacijalna praksa uslijed koje nacije povlašćuju određeni lokalietet u tvorbi i predstavljanju svojeg identiteta. Autor ilustrira tu strategiju analizom funkcije zapada Irske u procesima dekolonizacije i u kasnijem razdoblju stvaranja države. U nastavku izlaganja autor pokazuje, koristeći primjere iz književnosti kako ta praksa nije bez osporavatelja nego da je izložena kritici od strane oporbenjačkih glasova unutar kulturnog arhiva. U zaključku autor ocrtava ulogu zapada u irskoj turističkoj ponudi

CAPITALIST REALISM, FINANCE AND DON DELILLO

The author begins his paper by recalling his qualms about the fact that the Split conference subsumed capitalist realism under the overall conference topic of Words and Images. His first step is to engage with Fisher’s notion of capitalist realism. After a brief overview of what Fisher understands by this notion, the author argues that any discussion of capitalist realism has to take into consideration the changes that have taken place in the nature of money. It is only when these changes are taken into account, changes that have to do with the fact that we recognize money as a system if not the system of representation, that one recognizes how relevant words and images are to discussions of capital. After a discussion of the ascendancy of finance during the latest mutation of capitalism, the author proceeds to give a reading of Don DeLillo’s short story “Hammer and Sickle” in which he shows how the text deals with finance, how DeLillo thematizes the difficulty of understanding finance and how all of this has a bearing on the lack of an alternative to capitalism announced in Fisher’s explanation of capitalist realism

Istosti i razlike starenja

The author proposes that ageing and old age can be seen as a universal process but also as something that can be differentiated both by time and place. In the central part of the article, the author contends that one way of approaching the topic, particularly if it is addressed as part of the United States polity, is through the lens of American Studies and, more specifically, through the work of R.W.B. Lewis and his idea of the American Adam. It is precisely the self-image of the United States as a country of youth that elides the significance of ageing from the disciplinary agenda. In addition, the author contends that the American socio-economic order marginalizes ageing as incompatible with its dynamics. In the onclusion, the author up dates the issue and shows how today’s pension schemes affect what as precisely designated as a time of retirement.Koliko god je starenje univerzalna kategorija autor ukazuje na činjenicu da taj proces nije podjednako registriran u različitim kulturama. Pišući iz perspektive američkih studija i stavljajući poseban naglasak na sintagmu „američki Adam“ C. S. Lewisa, autor članka ukazuje na osebujan način kako američke identitetske strategije tretiraju starost kao nešto strano naciji koja se poima kao „uvijek mlada“ zemlja. U daljnjoj raspravi ukazuje se na međuuvjetovanost takvog poimanja ljudskog trajanja i američkog ekonomskog ustroja i kako se sve to odražava na procese u američkoj suvremenosti

Predjeli u poeziji Sjeverne Irske i postkolonijalna rasprava

The paper offers a reading of a number of poets from the North of Ireland and analyses them within the context of the current debate on the applicability of the postcolonial paradigm to Irish culture and history. The author\u27s intention is to make a contribution to this debate by focusing on the spacialities inscribed within the chosen poetic texts. The concept of spaciality is pursued in the readings of the poets through the issues of territoriability, sense of place and the border. On the evidence of the way these markers of space are inscribed within the poetic texts the author is able to take a stand regarding the postcolonial debate. Throughout the paper the author insists on the fact that his reading is positioned as a cross-cultural reading and that this accounts both for its possible shortcomings but also for a specific access it enables him to the Irish texts

Concerning the Spatial Turn

U radu autor prikazuje dva nedavno objavljena zbornika posvećena onome što se danas imenuje kao »zaokret ka prostoru«. Nakon što je opisao ključna pitanja koja zaokupljuju priloge sakupljene u zbornicima, autor koristi prigodu ukazati na problematično izostavljanje njemačke tradicije promišljanja prostora iz dominantnih teorijskih paradigmi koje izrastaju iz rečenog spacijalnog zaokreta. Na kraju prikaza autor nudi nekoliko zapažanja o razlozima elidiranja problematike prostornosti u domaćoj teorijskoj produkciji.In the article the author discusses two recently published collections of essays devoted to what is today designated as the “spatial turn”. After addressing the key questions that preoccupy the contributions collected in these publications, the author uses the occasion to point to the problematic omission of the German tradition of thinking space from the dominant theoretical paradigms which have emerged from the above mentioned spatial turn. At the end of the article the author offers a number of observations relating to the reasons for the elision of the spatial problematic in Croatian theoretical production