About the Book
A cross-cultural study that explores and redefines what philosophy, philosophizing, and philosophers are through the lens of literature.
The academic discipline of philosophy may tell us, too rigidly, what a philosopher is or should be; but fictional narration often upholds the core conundrums of humankind in which philosophy germinates. This collection of essays explores whether a study of ‘philosophers’ at a planetary scale, or at least on a broad cross-cultural spectrum, can decouple philosophy from its academic aspect and lend it a more inclusive domain.
Contributors to this volume play with three conceptual poles, making them interact with each other and get modified through this interaction: ‘fiction’, ‘narrative’ and ‘philosopher’. How do these three terms get semantically modified and broadened in scope when we speak of the figures of philosophers in imaginative writing? How do these terms assume different connotations in different cultural contexts, interacting with the multiplicity of not just ‘thought’, but also the media and tools of ‘thought’? Do we always think only rationally? Or do we also think with and through emotively powerful images, symbols and tropes? In the end, Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction insists on the need to ‘de-elitize’ and democratize the concept of a ‘philosopher’ by reflecting on the possibility of seeing a philosopher as one who sees things clearly, from any vantage point.
Table of Contents:
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “Who” Is a Philosopher? Philosophers in Fiction
Anway Mukhopadhyay (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India), Saptarshi Mallick (Sukanta Mahavidyalaya, University of North Bengal, India) and Debashree Dattaray (Jadavpur University, India)
Part I. The Figure of the Philosopher: Theorization, Tropologization, Interrogation
1. Philosophy from the Feet Up
Andy Mousley (De Montfort University, UK)
2. Tasos Leivaditis’ Blind Man with the Lamp as Anti-Philosopher
N. N. Trakakis (Australian Catholic University, Australia)
3. Beyond Mind and Matter: Robert Pirsig’s Quest for Quality
Gabriel Ricci (Elizabethtown College, USA)
4. Philosophers for Themselves or for the Society?: Václav Havel’s Plays and Essays between a Solitary Philosopher and a Philosopher-Statesman
Tomáš Halamka (Charles University, Czech Republic) and Jana Tokarská (Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic)
5. Search for an Alternative Onto-topology: A Reading of J. M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K
Ashok K Mohapatra (St. Xavier's University, India)
6. Navigating Marlow’s Enigmatic Philosophy of Nature in Heart of Darkness
Michael T. Heneise (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)
7. Ghost in the Shell: Relational Actorness in Moments of Crisis
Aleš Karmazin (Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic)
Part II. Devoured by Fiction: Philosopher Figures' Journey from History to Fiction
8. Love, Death, and Philosophy: The Representation of Albert Camus in Salim Bachi’s Le Dernier été d’un jeune homme
Lynda Chouiten (University of Boumerdes, Algeria)
9. Border Crossings: Foucault, Philosophy and Fiction
Ian McCormick (Independent Scholar, UK)
10. The Axial Age through a Novelist’s Eyes: The Philosopher Characters in Gore Vidal’s Creation
Jeffery D. Long (Elizabethtown College, USA)
11. Reading the Trope of Yatra/Journey in Sanmatrananda’s Nastik Panditer Bhita and Chhayacharachar: The Possibilities of ‘Being’ and ‘Knowing’
Arpita Chattaraj Mukhopadhyay (University of Burdwan, India)
Part III. 'Philosopher', Defined Anew: Gender, Indigeneity, 'Ordinariness' and Non-anthropocentrism
12. The Snail and Its House: Anneliese as a Home Thinker in Lou Andreas-Salomé's Das Haus
Shruti Jain (O.P. Jindal Global University, India)
13. Widows, Prostitutes, and Freedom: Philosophy in Unusual Places
Lakshmi Arya Thathachar (RV University, India)
14. “Stories are meant to heal”: Indigenous Epistemology and the Elders in Richard Wagamese's Works
Debashree Dattaray (Jadavpur University, India)
15. Characters as Philosophers: Understanding Igbo Proverbs and Characterizations in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah (William V.S Tubman University, Liberia)
16. The Ordinary “Seers”: Emotions, Detachment and Darshana in Dharamvir Bharati’s Stories
Vanashree (IILM University, India)
17. Performing Philosophy: Rajesh Khanna’s Philosopher Heroes from Early 1970s Hindi Cinema
Piyush Roy (RV University, India)
18. "The White Fox" as a Vision of Altruistic Self-sacrificial Love: Okakura Tenshin's Opera Manuscript
Eiko Ohira (Otsuma Women’s University, Japan)
19. The Fellowship of Tranquillity: The Poet and His Child Philosopher
Saptarshi Mallick (Sukanta Mahavidyalaya/University of North Bengal, India)
Index
About the Author :
Anway Mukhopadhyay is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India.
Debashree Dattaray is Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, India.
Saptarshi Mallick is Assistant Professor in the Department of American Studies, University of Graz, Austria. He is on lien from Sukanta Mahavidyalaya, University of North Bengal, India.
Review :
The 21st century needs this timely cross-cultural reinvention of philosophers, dead and alive, in fiction and lived experience, for deep thought and everyday dialogue in the Anthropocene.
Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction presents a conceptual multi-perspectivity: it is cross-cultural, articulating works from Indian, Japanese, various European and American contexts; it is multidisciplinary, analysing literary texts and films; and it pays attention to various philosophical streams, ranging from classical Indian or Greek philosophy and Neo-Confucianism to more modern schools of thought, such as existentialism, post-structuralism or post-humanism. This is an original and impressive collection, bringing new approaches to challenging questions about the mutual influences on literature and philosophy.
