The Underside of Politics: Global Fictions in the Fog of the Cold War

Sorin Radu Cucu

Published by Fordham University Press 2013

The Underside of Politics

Global Fictions in the Fog of the Cold War

Sorin Radu Cucu

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823254361

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book explores the relation between nationhood, literary culture and globalism in the context of the Cold War struggle over the legacy of European modernity, a struggle to represent diverse experiences of the political, after World War II and colonialism. This book argues that, during the Cold War, modern political imagination is held captive by the split between two visions of universality -- freedom in the West vs. social justice in the East -- and by a culture of secrecy that ties national identity to national security. The significance of Cold War political modernity is made evident in the staging of dialogues between
post-1945 American and Eastern European novelists: Kundera with Roth, Coover with Popescu and Kiš and DeLillo.

Author / Editor information

Cucu Sorin Radu :

Sorin Radu Cucu is Assistant Professor in the English Department at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.

Reviews

—Christian Moraru:
Dwelling insightfully on the articulation of the political in Cold War U. S. and Central-East European fiction, The Underside of Politics makes an original and timely contribution to a number of fields, not least to postmodern studies. Postmodernism, Cucu persuasively argues, is political and must be approached comparatively.

—Henry Sussman:
Sorin Radu Cucu writes from the perspective of an exceptional lifelong erudition combined with direct personal experience of some of the political absurdities that he isolates and glosses authoritatively in key literary works of his choice. The Underside of Politics is arguably an indispensable primer, with resonance to students as well as to established scholars, in the contemporary construct of the political as it pertains to literary productions and other cultural artifacts.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Prelude Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Introduction. Writing the Cold War: Literature, Democracy and the Global Polis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
1. Kafka and the Cold War: Fantasies of the Invisible Master Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
2. The Vicissitudes of Popular Sovereignty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
3. National Security in the Age of the Global Picture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
4. All Power to the Networks! Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
Concluding Remarks: Transnational American Studies in the Fog of the Cold War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	206
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Pages
- Main content: 264
Keywords: globalism; literature; World order; totalitarianism; popular sovereignty; transnational networks; Cold War; political theology; the contemporary; American exceptionalism; prophetic writing

eBook

Published: June 21, 2013
ISBN: 9780823254361