J.M. Coetzee and the idea of the public intellectual
By: edited by Jane Poyner.
Contributors: Poyner, Jane.
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Athens
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
ISBN-13: 9780821416860; 9780821416877
Subjects: Coetzee, J. M., -- 1940- -- Criticism and interpretation; Politics and literature -- South Africa -- History -- 20th century; Animal rights; South Africa -- In literature
Description: "In September 2003 the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, confirming his reputation as one of the most influential writers of our time. J. M. Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual addresses the contribution Coetzee has made to contemporary literature, not least for the contentious interventions his work makes in South African political discourse and the field of postcolonial studies." "From Socrates and Aristotle to Edward Said, Ngugi, Arundhati Roy, and Wole Soyinka, the debate over the role of the intellectual in society has a long history. As South Africa has passed from colonialism through apartheid to the postapartheid era, this debate has been particularly urgent, and writing and intellectualism have been profoundly politicized activities." "If one understands writing as necessarily a public activity, then J. M. Coetzee, despite his well-known reserve, has been very much a participant in the debate. By engaging self-consciously with the ethics of writing in his critical essays and all his works of fiction, often through the portrayal of the conscience-stricken white writer, he has deliberately placed himself in the public domain." "J. M. Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual engages with the wide range and context of the ethical and political concerns and ideas in Coetzee's writing. These illuminating new essays will reward anyone interested in the tension and interplay of ideas, literature, and politics, or seeking an introduction to this Nobel Prize winner's work. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Jane Poyner; title: The life and times of Elizabeth Costello : J.M. Coetzee and the public sphere / David Attwell; title: The writer, the critic, and the censor : J.M. Coetzee and the question of literature / Peter D. McDonald; title: Against allegory : 'Waiting for the barbarians,' 'Life & times of Michael K,' and the question of literary reading / Derek Attridge; title: Death and the space of the response to the other in J.M. Coetzee's 'The master of Petersburg' / Michael Marais; title: A belief in frogs : J.M. Coetzee's enduring faith in fiction / Dominic Head; title: J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello, and the limits of the sympathetic imagination / Sam Durrant; title: Sorry, sorrier, sorriest : the gendering of contrition in J.M. Coetzee's 'Disgrace' / Elleke Boehmer; title: Going to the dogs : humanity in J.M. Coetzee's 'Disgrace,' 'The lives of animals,' and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission / Rosemary Jolly; title: What is it like to be a nonracist? : Costello and Coetzee on the lives of animals and men / Michael Bell; title: A feminist-vegetarian defense of Elizabeth Costello : a rant from an ethical academic on J.M. Coetzee's 'The life of animals' / Laura Wright; title: Textual transvestism : the female voices of J.M. Coetzee / Lucy Graham.