Review article
LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND SPACE IN THE MIRROR OF THE LATE 20TH CENTURY
Vjekoslava Jurdana
; zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In this text, the author discusses the complex relations between the writing of history and literature, the challenge of which becomes especially pressing within so-called post-structural theoretical accounts. What is at issue is that the twentieth century recorded a move toward the postmodern, which, no longer “imprisoned” by history, problematizes the relation between events from the past and historical facts as products. Yet this does not mean that we are left with a nihilistic stance rendering the writing of history impossible or that logical conclusions and archival research are rejected, rather it emphasizes the variegation of social space, which is no longer comprehended as containing one history, one theory or one narrative text. Thus history is viewed as a kind of literary account. Moreover, it is observed that literature is less misleading because it implies its own rhetorical status. Such a redefinition of epistemological perspectives opens the possibility of destabilizing monolithic historical perspectives, especially in the struggles for decolonization, which includes the wider processes of revising gendered language, self and cultural community, but also the problematization of gender, or the status of women in history. In this case, the author emphasizes that time can only be presented if it is ascribed some characteristics of space. Thus, instead of privileging time and history, an emphasis is placed on geographic and spatial imagination.
Keywords
History; Literature; Space; Post-Modernity; Decolonization; Feminist Literary Criticism
Hrčak ID:
47999
URI
Publication date:
26.7.2009.
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