Literary Theories of Uncertainty

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As the first study to examine the concept of uncertainty of meaning as it relates to modern and contemporary literature and literary theory, Literary Theories of Uncertainty demonstrates how this notion functions as a literary feature, narrative device and theoretical concept in 20th and 21st-century texts. Calling upon theories of interpretation and challenging the distinction between literature and theory, this exploration is broken down into three sections: Poststructuralist legacies of uncertainty; life-writing and uncertainty; and contemporary literary uncertainties. The volume takes into account related terms such as undecidability, indeterminacy, ambiguity, unreadability, and obscurity, and the topics examined include: undecidability and the motif of suspension in deconstruction; Derrida and Bataille; poetry as a mode of critical discourse and point of convergence between logico-mathematical ideas of undecidability and literary forms of uncertainty; uncertainty in relation to speech and the impact of Robert Antelme on Mascolo and Blanchot; Proust and temporal uncertainty; uncertainty in relation to death, trauma and autobiography; moral uncertainty in the Scandinavian welfare state and Nordic Noir; the aesthetically disruptive and anti-authorian effect of uncertainty in in the works of German-Turkish writer Emine Sevgi Ozdamar; uncertainty in the form of the double and in relation to meta-fiction; and many more. Literary Theories of Uncertainty collates original and diverse discussions by some of the most prominent, inquiring minds in literary, cultural and critical theory today to map out the contours of the field of theory of uncertainty.

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[Mette Leonard] excellently and proficiently discusses the meaning of considering literature through a lens of uncertainty and describes the value of studying the potentially opaque topic ... The contributors include diverse perspectives that provide the reader with a comprehensive, global look at theories of uncertainty. The book delivers on its promise to argue for uncertaintys place at the center of ascertaining and creating literary meaning through a volume that is thoughtfully rigorous and cleverly structured to facilitate the readers understanding. * Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature *

Author Bio

METTE LEONARD HEG is Carlsberg Foundation Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College and visiting fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, UK. She holds a PhD in English from Kings College London, UK. A Fulbright alumna, she was assisting editor on the critical edition of Isak Dinesens Anecdotes of Destiny and Last Tales by the Society for Danish Language and Literature (2016) and published Undecidability and Zones of Indistinction in Herta Mllers Atemschaukel in a 2020 German Life and Letters special issue. In addition she has had papers appear in the journals Kultur & Klasse (2013) and Spring (2011). Heg organised the international conference Twilight Zones: Undecidabilities in Literature and Literary Theory.