Och ändå : Omedelbarhet i samtida kulturteori och i Andrzej Tichýs Renheten

Sammanfattning

In this paper I examine, through an analytical marxist perspective, a selection of prominent claims about society and politics that underwrite contemporary literary studies, a field which critical theorist Anna Kornbluh have deemed oversatured with "immediacy style" - a striving for presence beyond abstraction. Historically and politically, I find that Kornbluh's description aligns with a vitalistic hostility toward Enlightenment ideals, which proves to be a central concern. I show how german intellectuals such as Max Weber and Martin Heidegger, together with later intellectuals associated with the New Left and onward, have established a narrative of the Enlightenment that acts to vilify universal notions of reason and democracy, and make invisible the material realities of class conflict. This narrative is, nonetheless, taken for granted as true in almost all cultural studies, including "immediate" theorizing. Finally, I show how this narrative, as well as "immediacy style", manifests in Andrzej Tichýs literary work Purity from 2020. I conclude that the intensified search for presence in contemporary culture is a result of a historically weak working-class.