Fiction and Imagination: The Boundaries of Literary Anthropology

Author: (German) Wolfgang Iser / Chen Dingjia / Wang Zhenglong, etc.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: In the 1970s and 1980s, Iser was a prominent figure in reception aesthetics. After the 1990s, he shifted his focus to literary anthropology. Although we cannot yet conclude whether Iser's literary anthropology can recreate the significant impact his reception aesthetics once had on literary studies, it is certain that its theoretical impact on literary theory has been no less profound. This interview, centered around the concepts of performance and imagination, discusses key topics in literary anthropology, such as performativity, performance, transgression, alterity, heterogeneity, and the hidden other, among others. These discussions will lead us to re-examine the legitimacy of literary theory based on Cartesian epistemology, which relies on the dualism of subject and object, and may inspire us to "perform" our own existence in the sense of philosophical ontology. In recent decades, tremendous changes have taken place. In this regard, it shares the same breath with philosophy, as we see philosophy has also undergone such profound transformations. It is enough to simply compare the philosophical context of half a century ago with that of today, and we will realize how immense and profound these changes are. Fifty years ago, Western philosophy could still be categorized into different cultural and political empires. Geographically, Germany, France, and the Anglo-American world dominated, while from other perspectives, there were purely academic traditions, radical Marxism, and so on. This book marks another theoretical climax by the author following his reception aesthetics, serving as a model for the "cultural turn" in contemporary Western and European criticism. The book aims to answer, from an anthropological perspective, why we need literature. The author, Wolfgang Iser, is a German aesthetician and a key representative of the Konstanz School of reception aesthetics.