Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Type:
    Journal:
    Volume:
    Issue:
  • Publication
    Political Initiation in the Novels of Philip Roth
    (Continuum Publishing, 2013)
    Political Initiation in the Novels of Philip Roth exemplifies how literature and, specifically, the work of Philip Roth can help readers understand the ways in which individuals develop their political identity, learn to comprehend political ideas, and define their role in society. Combining political science, literary theory, and anthropology, the book describes an individual's political coming of age as a political initiation story, which is crafted as much by the individual himself as by the circumstances influencing him, such as political events or the political attitude of the parents. Philip Roth's characters constantly re-write their own stories and experiment with their identities. Accordingly, Philip Roth's works enable the reader to explore, for instance, how individuals construct their identity against the backdrop of political transformations or contested territories, and thereby become initiands-or fail to do so. Contrary to what one might expect, initiations are not only defining moments in childhood and early adulthood; instead, Roth shows how initiation processes recur throughout an individual's life.
  • Publication
    Political Initiation in the Works of Philip Roth
    This thesis exemplifies how literature can help political science understand the ways in which individuals develop their political identity, learn to understand po¬litical ideas, and define their role in society. The formula suggested to encapsulate these developments is "political initiation," a term which bridges the gaps be¬tween political science, literary theory, and anthropology. Thereby, political so¬cialization research, the branch of political science usually concerned with in¬dividual political awakenings, can broaden its perspective for the mechanisms of self-creation that both anthropology and literary science have unraveled. In this vein, an individual's political coming of age may be read as a political initiation story, which is crafted as much by the individual himself as by the circumstances influencing him, such as political events or the political attitude of the parents. Methodologically, this means that political scientists who read fiction should con¬sider a literary character's development in context, decipher his dependence on other figures, and focus on the political, social and historical context in which the character is embedded. Philip Roth's characters are masters of self-invention, re-creation, imperso¬nation and disguise: They constantly re-write their own stories and experiment with their identities. In addition, Roth likes to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, thus further challenging allegedly stable categories, such as identity it¬self. Accordingly, his works enable the political scientist interested in literature to explore, for instance, what roles stories themselves play for an individual's per¬ception of politics - or fails to do so. While at times Roth's plots and characters illustrate the findings of political socialization research, they may also contribute to the understanding of phenomena with regard to which political science has reached an impasse or has not yet established a consensus. In this manner, Roth presents the reader with answers to terrorism's "why?" which may be counter¬intuitive to many political scientists. As Philip Roth's works demonstrate, literature can confront political science with challenging counter-realities, and force it to consider aspects it has hitherto neglected.
    Type:
    Issue:
  • Publication
    A Reluctant Public Intellectual : Seeing America through Philip Roth
    Philip Roth frequently stressed, both in his novels and in interviews, that he did not believe in literature's transformative powers, beyond its turning people into better readers. For instance, he shows in I Married A Communist (1998) how Nathan Zuckerman first perceives literature as a means of political persuasion, until he is taught to recognize the antagonistic relationship between art and politics. Moreover, Roth has repeatedly fought attempts by critics to read parts of his oeuvre as political allegories, most notably in the case of his novel The Plot Against America (2004). At the same time, however, he never withholds his own political opinions. Roth's frankness combined with the politically pertinent questions raised by his novels makes him, (in)voluntarily, a sought-after observer and critic of American life. Particularly in the German speaking world, where critical literary voices such as Günter Grass or Adolf Muschg are perceived as important public intellectuals, Philip Roth is often presented as a messenger, an interpreter of American reality whose views are not only quoted in the culture pages of the newspaper, but sometimes even in the sports section. This paper shall explore what America German and Swiss media as well as scholarly works believe to recognize through their readings of and interviews with Philip Roth. It will in a first step show the extent of the media coverage and the scholarly work on Roth's novels, and then discuss in a second step how he is cast as a public intellectual, who explains the transatlantic "Other" to the German speaking reader.
  • Publication
    Chiastic Reflections : Rash Moments in the Life of Zuckerman
    (Purdue University Press, 2009-10)
    http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philip_roth_studies/summary/v005/5.2.bruhwiler.html Nathan Zuckerman's farewell with Exit Ghost is interwoven with Joseph Conrad's initiation story The Shadow-Line (1917) which traces the moral maturation of a young captain. While one could see Conrad's unnamed protagonist mirrored in Richard Kliman, this article rather suggests to read The Shadow-Line as the motivic fundament of Zuckerman's life: during his whole literary existence, Zuckerman has been meandering along the shadow-line, the emblem of this developmental twilight state the initiand is held in. In contrast to the typical initiand who will, eventually, be able to claim a new position, Zuckerman remains a perpetual initiand.
    Type:
    Journal:
    Volume:
    Issue: