Page 34 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 34
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
cannot stop being a part of the structural violence as long as we are living
in the economic-political system that we currently have. Structural vio-
lence is inherent to neoliberalism capitalism and to its corresponding po-
litical representation. That system cannot be changed through institu-
tions of this same system. Its institutions are not the means of change, but
of maintaining the existing system” (Toporišič 2016, 4). But both artists
join the special form of deconstruction of reality through a recollection
of the past, which creates a special politics of prose and theatre.
Our purpose is to outline the terrain of contemporary subjectivity
at ‘home’ as much as ‘on the frontlines’. Beyond an examination of the
challenging subjective positions, we will follow two artistic figures who
cross the borders and inhabit the moving battlefield of today’s Europe or
beyond. We will attempt to understand the dialectic of art and society,
34 within which fluid, uncontrollable subjects constantly change the con-
tours. We will call into question the critical consensus that contemporary
art principally deals with the real and try to describe how contemporary
theatre and literature navigate through the complexities of the discourse
and societal reality of neoliberalism in the era of terrorism. We will look
at how art negotiates, how it collaborates in the discursive flow of stories,
idioms, polemics, testimonies and bits of (mis)information in the con-
frontation with global uncertainties.
The Special Status of Culture and Art in the Contemporary World
We will begin with Marko Juvan’s detection of the status of culture and
art in the contemporary world as he describes in the article The World
Literary System. When he speaks about the literary system, he under-
stands the status of both as a complex topology in which intersect “dif-
ferent levels: the level of the text and the intertextual relations, the level
of the transfers of objects, institutional matrices, structures and cultural
practices, the infrastructural level of the transnational social networks,
media, organisations and canons, and also the level of concepts, con-
sciousness and imagination”. He sees world literature as ‘glocal’, acces-
sible “only through the localised archives of cultural memory and par-
ticularly through cognitive, linguistic perspectives”. From those “world
literature ramifies as a mycelium of variant corpora, representations and
systematisations. World literature structures itself in a series of dislocat-
ed records, which are the subject of reflection and treatment in different
literary systems” (Juvan 2009, 205–206). His analysis, which among oth-
ers stems from Deleuze-Guattari’s concept of the mycelium, can easily be
cannot stop being a part of the structural violence as long as we are living
in the economic-political system that we currently have. Structural vio-
lence is inherent to neoliberalism capitalism and to its corresponding po-
litical representation. That system cannot be changed through institu-
tions of this same system. Its institutions are not the means of change, but
of maintaining the existing system” (Toporišič 2016, 4). But both artists
join the special form of deconstruction of reality through a recollection
of the past, which creates a special politics of prose and theatre.
Our purpose is to outline the terrain of contemporary subjectivity
at ‘home’ as much as ‘on the frontlines’. Beyond an examination of the
challenging subjective positions, we will follow two artistic figures who
cross the borders and inhabit the moving battlefield of today’s Europe or
beyond. We will attempt to understand the dialectic of art and society,
34 within which fluid, uncontrollable subjects constantly change the con-
tours. We will call into question the critical consensus that contemporary
art principally deals with the real and try to describe how contemporary
theatre and literature navigate through the complexities of the discourse
and societal reality of neoliberalism in the era of terrorism. We will look
at how art negotiates, how it collaborates in the discursive flow of stories,
idioms, polemics, testimonies and bits of (mis)information in the con-
frontation with global uncertainties.
The Special Status of Culture and Art in the Contemporary World
We will begin with Marko Juvan’s detection of the status of culture and
art in the contemporary world as he describes in the article The World
Literary System. When he speaks about the literary system, he under-
stands the status of both as a complex topology in which intersect “dif-
ferent levels: the level of the text and the intertextual relations, the level
of the transfers of objects, institutional matrices, structures and cultural
practices, the infrastructural level of the transnational social networks,
media, organisations and canons, and also the level of concepts, con-
sciousness and imagination”. He sees world literature as ‘glocal’, acces-
sible “only through the localised archives of cultural memory and par-
ticularly through cognitive, linguistic perspectives”. From those “world
literature ramifies as a mycelium of variant corpora, representations and
systematisations. World literature structures itself in a series of dislocat-
ed records, which are the subject of reflection and treatment in different
literary systems” (Juvan 2009, 205–206). His analysis, which among oth-
ers stems from Deleuze-Guattari’s concept of the mycelium, can easily be
