Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development seeks to explore and develop Leon Trotskyâs concept of uneven and combined development. In particular, it aims to adapt the political and historical analysis which originated in Trotskyâs Russia for use within the contemporary field of world literature. As such, it draws together the work of scholars from both the field of international relations and the field of literature and the arts. This collection will therefore be of particular interest to anyone who is interested in new ways of understanding world literary texts, or interested in new ways of applying Trotskyâs revolutionary politics to the contemporary world order.
Contributors: Alexander Anievas, Gail Day, James Christie, Kamran Matin, Kerem Nisancioglu, Luke Cooper, Michael Niblett, Neil Davidson, Nesrin Degirmencioglu, Robert Spencer, Steve Edwards.
James Christie was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of English and Comparatıve Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, where he received his Ph.D. in 2014. He now teaches English in secondary education in the UK. His research interests include critical theory and contemporary American fiction. He has published in Mediations: The Journal of the Marxist Literary Group, and The Cormac McCarthy Journal.
Nesrin Degirmencioglu was formerly a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, where she received her Ph.D. in 2014. She now teaches at the Middle East Technical Universityâs Northern Cyprus Campus. Her current research focuses on world literature debates and manifestations of neoliberalism in contemporary American and Turkish fiction.
AcknowledgementsList of FiguresNotes on Contributors
Part 1 Introducing the Field
Introduction: Why Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development? âJames Christie and Nesrin Degirmencioglu
1 Uneven and Combined Development as a Universal Aspect of Capitalist Modernity âNeil Davidson
Part 2 Critiquing Eurocentrism
2 Troubling Time and Space in World Politics: Reimagining Western Modernity in the Atlantic Mirror âAlexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu
3 The Iranian Revolution in the Mirror of Uneven and Combined Development âKamran Matin
4 Rationalist or Nationalist? The Eighteenth-Century Public Sphere âLuke Cooper
Part 3 Towards a Theory of Culture
5 Uneven and Combined Development: Between Capitalist Modernity and Modernism âNeil Davidson
6 Fredric Jameson and the Rise of World Literature: From World Systems Theory to Uneven and Combined Development âJames Christie
Part 4 Reading under the Sign of Uneven and Combined Development
7 Late Capitalism in Contemporary Fiction âRobert Spencer
8 Differential Time and Aesthetic Form: Uneven and Combined Capitalism in the Work of Allan Sekula âGail Day and Steve Edwards
9 Aesthetics of Uneven and Combined Development: Tanpınar and Dos Passos at a World Literary Conjuncture âNesrin Degirmencioglu
10 Demon Landscapes, Uneven Ecologies: Folk-Spirits in Guyanese Fiction âMichael Niblett BibliographyIndex
All interested in the contemporary field of World Literature, and related sociological aesthetics. All interested in the role of uneven and combined development in the wider field of International Relations.