Selective Affinities - (Clark Lectures) by Rita Felski (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Rita Felski's new work brings literary studies into conversation with more affirmative and democratic forms of critical theory.

Literary critics associate the phrase "Frankfurt School" with early twentieth-century thinkers like Adorno or Benjamin, but contemporary German critical theory remains largely unknown. In this new book, Rita Felski draws on the work of a group of important philosophers and social theorists to offer fresh readings of literary texts by Robert Walser, Didier Eribon, Zadie Smith, Magda Szabo, John Williams, and Dionne Brand.

Through five key concepts derived from her reading of German theory--disclosure, recognition, self-realization, lifeworld, and resonance--Felski asks how these literary texts articulate the relationship between intellectuals and others. Contrary to critical theories that discount everyday experience, new German thought reveals the ethical, existential, and political richness of such experience. Through this framework, Felski shows that literature, theory, and experience are not opposed but mutually constitutive.

Review Quotes

"Selective Affinities is a valuable contribution to literary studies, written with Felski's characteristic verve. The book lucidly lays out the central concepts of a cluster of thinkers associated with the new Frankfurt School with whom most literary scholars may be largely unfamiliar, but whose ideas--as Felski demonstrates in absorbing, perceptive readings of a wide range of twenty-first-century literary works--can not only be fruitfully brought to bear on literary studies but also reconfigure how we understand the relationship between literature and life, between the realms of the aesthetic and the everyday."

"Rita Felski's new book sets out to expand and refine the conceptual tools of cultural criticism. It breaks new ground, is meticulously researched, and has the potential to further transform the field of literary studies on which she has already had such a profound impact. The result is a cogent, engaging, timely, and transformative argument that deserves a wide readership."

About the Author

Rita Felski is the John Stewart Bryan Professor at the University of Virginia and the author or editor of numerous books, including The Gender of Modernity, Uses of Literature, The Limits of Critique, and Hooked: Art and Attachment.