Literature, Autonomy and Commitment

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It is often argued that a new form of committed literature is needed. Embracing the 18th-century Romantic idea of aesthetic autonomy, literature is believed to have turned its back to everyday social and political reality. One of the central questions occupying contemporary literary debates is therefore whether literary autonomy is essential to modern literature (autonomism) or should be abandoned (anti-autonomism). Aukje van Rooden argues that the debate between autonomists and anti-autonomists cannot be anything but a fruitless tug-of-war, because it is based on a distorted historical picture. In order to make sense of the social relevance of contemporary literature, a new theoretical paradigm has to be formulated. Literature, Autonomy and Commitment not only offers an historical-conceptual reconstruction of the Romantic paradigm and the theoretical impasse it has created, but also sketches the outline of a new paradigm, called the relational paradigm, based on the relational ontologies developed in 20th- and 21st-century philosophy.

Reviews

In Literature, Autonomy and Commitment Aukje van Rooden makes a bold and insightful contribution to the debate between critics who champion the autonomy of art and those who favour social commitment. Drawing on the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, but in a style more accessible than Nancy's, she explores literature's mode of being at a level more fundamental than questions of autonomy and commitment and thus proposes a way forward for literary studies. * Derek Attridge, Emeritus Professor of English, University of York, UK *
Aukje van Rooden has made a major contribution to literary theory. Combining an impressive breadth and depth of literary scholarship and intellectual history with original interpretations of recent philosophy, Literature, Autonomy and Commitment both renews our understanding of literature itself and offers an important framework for understanding and evaluating individual works and authors today. * Ian James, Reader in Modern French Literature and Thought, University of Cambridge, UK *

Author Bio

Aukje van Rooden is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy of Art and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.