Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.32728/tab.22.2025.8
Cartographies of nowhere: utopian longing and determinate negation
Sam Gilchrist Hall
; Webster Private University, Vienna
Sažetak
This paper explores how literature and poetry across different epochs articulate what Horkheimer and Adorno (following Hegel) call “determinate negation”: the ability of art to expose the contradictions of the world from which it emerges and thus open a space for thinking otherwise. Through readings of works by Shakespeare, John Donne, Thomas Mann, R. M. Rilke, Nick Cave and Nina Simone, utopian thought is interpreted as an aesthetic form of resistance to the ideology of reality. The paper emphasises the concept of “weak poetry,” as a mode of critique grounded in limitation and imperfection. The final section considers the erosion of this aesthetic capacity in the digital age, where reality is increasingly structured by algorithms, connectivity, and the ideology of quantification. It concludes that art continues to preserve the possibility of nonconformist thought and remains a vital site of humanistic resistance.
Ključne riječi
utopia; determinate negation; Adorno and Horkheimer; literature; aesthetics of resistance; Shakespeare; Donne; Rilke; Mann; digital culture
Hrčak ID:
341909
URI
Datum izdavanja:
19.12.2025.
Posjeta: 460 *