Hegel and the Foundations of Literary Theory
Cambridge University Press, 11/22/2018
EAN 9781108471381, ISBN10: 1108471382
Hardcover, 346 pages, 23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Do the various forms of literary theory - deconstruction, Marxism, new historicism, feminism, post-colonialism, and cultural/digital studies - have anything in common? If so, what are the fundamental principles of theory? What is its ideological orientation? Can it still be of use to us in understanding basic intellectual and ethical dilemmas of our time? These questions continue to perplex both students and teachers of literary theory. Habib finds the answers in theory's largely unacknowledged roots in the thought of German philosopher Hegel. Hegel's insights continue to frame the very terms of theory to this day. Habib explains Hegel's complex ideas and how they have percolated through the intellectual history of the last century. This book will interest teachers and students of literature, literary theory and the history of ideas, illuminating how our modern world came into being, and how we can better understand the salient issues of our own time.
Introduction
Part I. Hegel
The Historical And Philosophical Setting
1. The Hegelian dialectic
2. Historical backgrounds
3. Hegel, philosopher of capitalism
4. Hegel on identity and difference
5. Hegelian identity and economics
Part II. Literary Theory
Reading The Dialectic
6. Hegel and deconstruction
7. Hegel on language
8. Literary theory on Hegel and language Saussure, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze
9. Hegel, language, and the unconscious Kristeva
10. Hegel's dialectic of master and slave
11. The master-slave dialectic in literary theory
allegorical readings
Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida
12. Marx on the Hegelian dialectic
13. Hegel and Marxist literary theory (I) Horkheimer, Adorno and Benjamin
14. Hegel and Marxist literary theory (II) Slavoj Žižek
15. Hegel on woman
Antigone
16. Feminists on Hegel and Antigone
Irigaray, Butler, (Derrida)
17. Historical contexts of Hegel's views on women
Epilogue
the futures of theory
towards a dialectical humanism.