
The Lost Thread
The Democracy of Modern Fiction
Jacques Ranciere(Author)
Bloomsbury Academic (Publisher)
Published on 15. December 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-350-02568-4 (ISBN)
Description
In The Lost Thread, Ranciere debunks the notion of Flaubert, Baudelaire, Conrad, Woolf and Keats as reactionary producers of bourgeois mythologies, and instead foregrounds the egalitarian and democratic impulses of modernist literature. Contrary to the canonical interpretation of the relation between modernism and capitalism via the commodification of everyday life, Ranciere proposes a radical rethinking of our received ideas regarding the politics of aesthetics in the modern era.
Through a complex and original stitching together of form and content, modernists strove to depict by embodying new forms and regimes of material and everyday life. Ranciere articulates this substantial change in the politics of representation by explaining the shattering of the sacrosanct hierarchies of the genres and life-forms of classical literature. In the midst of the 19th century, poets, novelists and playwrights challenged the narrative staples of noble means and moral ends, and introduced an entirely new "structure of feeling". In this work, Ranciere continues his project of outlining an egalitarian "distribution of the sensible" as the compelling linkage between politics and aesthetics in the modern age. The Lost Thread not only advances Ranciere's commended work on aesthetics, it also offers the reader in depth analyses of the writers in question.
Through a complex and original stitching together of form and content, modernists strove to depict by embodying new forms and regimes of material and everyday life. Ranciere articulates this substantial change in the politics of representation by explaining the shattering of the sacrosanct hierarchies of the genres and life-forms of classical literature. In the midst of the 19th century, poets, novelists and playwrights challenged the narrative staples of noble means and moral ends, and introduced an entirely new "structure of feeling". In this work, Ranciere continues his project of outlining an egalitarian "distribution of the sensible" as the compelling linkage between politics and aesthetics in the modern age. The Lost Thread not only advances Ranciere's commended work on aesthetics, it also offers the reader in depth analyses of the writers in question.
Reviews / Votes
Ranciere's continues his recent explorations of the aesthetics and politics of fiction, poetry, and theater in this beautifully written and elegantly translated volume. The dissensual strategies of thinking, speaking, and acting that Ranciere finds in literary modernism are no less active in the spheres of politics and the social sciences, and this book will be of immense interest not only to scholars and students working in these fields, but to artists, writers, and activists experimenting with new modes of aesthetic and political invention today. * Kenneth Reinhard, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director, Program in Experimental Critical Theory, UCLA, USA *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
230 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-02568-4 (9781350025684)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
12/2016
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€25.49
Available for download

E-Book
12/2016
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€25.49
Available for download
Persons
Jacques Ranciere is one of the most influential philosophers writing today. He taught at the University of Paris VIII, France, from 1969 to 2000, occupying the Chair of Aesthetics and Politics from 1990 until his retirement.
Steven Corcoran is a writer and translator living in Berlin. He has edited and/or translated several works by Jacques Ranciere, including Dissensus (Continuum, 2010), two works by Alain Badiou, Polemics (2006) and Conditions (Continuum, 2008) and Alienation and Freedom by Frantz Fanon (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
Steven Corcoran is a writer and translator living in Berlin. He has edited and/or translated several works by Jacques Ranciere, including Dissensus (Continuum, 2010), two works by Alain Badiou, Polemics (2006) and Conditions (Continuum, 2008) and Alienation and Freedom by Frantz Fanon (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
Content
Translator's Introduction
Foreword
I. The Lost Thread of the Novel
II. Marlow's Lie
III. The death of Prue Ramsay
IV. Republic of the poets
V. The infinite taste of the Republic
VI. The Theatre of Thoughts
Notes
Index
Foreword
I. The Lost Thread of the Novel
II. Marlow's Lie
III. The death of Prue Ramsay
IV. Republic of the poets
V. The infinite taste of the Republic
VI. The Theatre of Thoughts
Notes
Index