Organizer: Ken Seigneurie
Contact the Seminar OrganizersThe symbiosis between literature and the development of liberal thought (Anderson, Gagnier, Harol and Simpson, Hunt, Mangrum) impels us to ask: What light can literature shed on the contemporary crisis of liberalism?
Liberal thought and literature have faced challenges together before. Throughout the mid-20th century liberalism was on the defensive (Deneen, Greif, Siegel). Despite emerging victorious from two World Wars, liberal democracies had nonetheless wreaked unprecedented violence in the name of democracy, freedom, and nonviolence. Liberalism, moreover, arguably harbored racist, colonialist, and neocolonial attitudes and policies (Bell, Mehta, Wall). The sense emerged that liberalism’s ideological victory over fascism and eventually Soviet communism concealed an empty promise that this “theory of the good life for individuals” could substitute for a sense of purpose in human life (Ryan 35). Even defenders conceded that liberalism flourished under playground conditions where the “basic structure of society is [already] effectively regulated by one of a family of reasonable liberal conceptions” (Rawls xlvii). Yet despite numerous apologies over the years (Barjot, Berlin, Fawcett, Rawls, Ryan), the sense remains strong that liberalism – not just neoliberalism – serves as an ideological screen for the exercise of nation-state power and social nihilism.
While much has been written about liberalism and literature in the Euro-North American traditions, far less attention has been devoted to liberal thought elsewhere. This seminar will explore literary visions of liberal thought beyond Euro-North America. After all, the increasingly bare-knuckle struggle over the liberal tradition today was arguably anticipated in the mid-20th century crisis of liberalism that resonated beyond Euro-North America (Bell, Hanssen, Jackson, Kamara, Schumann, Slaughter). This seminar therefore asks how literary texts:
Email kseigneu@sfu.ca for bibliography or more information.
Liberal thought and literature have faced challenges together before. Throughout the mid-20th century liberalism was on the defensive (Deneen, Greif, Siegel). Despite emerging victorious from two World Wars, liberal democracies had nonetheless wreaked unprecedented violence in the name of democracy, freedom, and nonviolence. Liberalism, moreover, arguably harbored racist, colonialist, and neocolonial attitudes and policies (Bell, Mehta, Wall). The sense emerged that liberalism’s ideological victory over fascism and eventually Soviet communism concealed an empty promise that this “theory of the good life for individuals” could substitute for a sense of purpose in human life (Ryan 35). Even defenders conceded that liberalism flourished under playground conditions where the “basic structure of society is [already] effectively regulated by one of a family of reasonable liberal conceptions” (Rawls xlvii). Yet despite numerous apologies over the years (Barjot, Berlin, Fawcett, Rawls, Ryan), the sense remains strong that liberalism – not just neoliberalism – serves as an ideological screen for the exercise of nation-state power and social nihilism.
While much has been written about liberalism and literature in the Euro-North American traditions, far less attention has been devoted to liberal thought elsewhere. This seminar will explore literary visions of liberal thought beyond Euro-North America. After all, the increasingly bare-knuckle struggle over the liberal tradition today was arguably anticipated in the mid-20th century crisis of liberalism that resonated beyond Euro-North America (Bell, Hanssen, Jackson, Kamara, Schumann, Slaughter). This seminar therefore asks how literary texts:
- Envision liberal responses to ideological extremisms?
- Combine aesthetic and political discourses?
- Adapt literary practice to various liberal or illiberal contexts?
- Deploy or deplore the Christian legacy in liberal thought (Moyn, Siedentop, Taylor)?
- Formulate hybrid liberalisms by integrating “non-liberal” discourses, e.g. religion, ethnic traditions, nationalism?
- Thematize in non-Western contexts liberal priorities such as: reason over faith, progress over providence, individual autonomy over social interdependence, equality over hierarchies, free enterprise over command economic systems, constitutional democracy over authoritarianism?
Email kseigneu@sfu.ca for bibliography or more information.