City Sister Silver

Bažant, Jan; Bažantová, Nina; Starn, Frances; Kirk, Robin

doi:10.1215/9780822393030-077

Cited by 3 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Let us return to the paragraph quoted at the beginning of this article. The situation described seems to be the same as usual—people ‘walking the street’, the ‘weather’, ‘clouds above and asphalt below’ (Topol, 2000 [1994]: 37)—everything seems orderly. Even time can be measured by a clock, which shows half past six.…”

Section: Analysis Of Sistermentioning

confidence: 96%

“…. (Topol, 2000 [1994]: 37–38)The Chicago River, its waters stained by industry, flows back upon itself, branching to divide the city into the South Side, the North Side, and ‘the great West Side.’ In the river’s southward bend lies the Loop, its skyline looming towards Lake Michigan. The Loop is the heart of Chicago, the knot in the steel arteries of elevated structure which pump in a ceaseless stream the three millions of population of the city into and out of its central business district.…”

Section: The Question Of Literature As Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zorbaugh, providing a macro-sociological bird’s-eye view, ‘writes of the city itself—its geography, its people, its places’ (Abbott, 2007: 68), while Topol, who depicts situations and characters in a more microsociological way, talks about the concrete experience of the fuss and fervor of new freedom by sketching ‘people with shopping bags’ and a ‘man with a tiger-stripe tie’ (Topol, 2000 [1994]: 37). The effect of concreteness is further facilitated by the pictorial, snapshot-like character of both passages.…”

Section: The Question Of Literature As Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My proposal for a new sociology of literature 1 adopts the landscape of meaning concept developed by Isaac Reed (2011) in combination with the aesthetic structuralism of Czech linguist Jan Mukařovský (1971, 1978). I demonstrate this approach through an analysis of the Czech novel City Sister Silver (hereafter Sister in italics), 2 by Jáchym Topol (2000 [1994]). I chose Sister for two main reasons: (1) Sister mediates a deeper understanding of social experience in a newly emerging Czechoslovak republic from 1989 onwards, and (2) this deeper understanding is possible through the reader’s (and the author’s) emotional engagement with the text which is facilitated by the aesthetic devices of the text.…”

Section: The Question Of Literature As Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Published in 1994, Sister (Topol, 2000 [1994]) immediately became the center of Czech literary debates. It was designated ‘one of the best literary depictions of the wretchedness of 1980s Czechoslovakia and the transition to freedom’ (Czech Literature, n.d.…”

Section: Analysis Of Sistermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Theorizing the Social Through Literary Fiction: For a New Sociology of Literature

Váňa

2020

Cultural Sociology

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When analyzing literary fiction, most cultural sociologists still accept the well-established boundaries between the literary and the sociological, thus leaving literature stripped of its aesthetic qualities. Instead, I propose a new approach that focuses on the process of meaning-making as it occurs within the interaction between the reader and the novel in a given socio-historical setting. This allows analysts to capture those aspects of understanding social experience which are usually ‘lost in translation’ between fictional and sociological genres. My major claims are that, first, when referring to social experience, both sociological and literary texts employ aesthetic devices to mediate understanding for the reader. Second, within the literary genre, the understanding of social experience relies much more on the emotional engagement of the reader through a reading process facilitated by these aesthetic devices. Third, to benefit methodologically and epistemologically from the lyrical understanding of social experience mediated by literature, cultural sociologists must be particularly sensitive to the subtlety and ambiguity of meanings mediated by the aesthetic. The methodological advantage gained is the analysis of deeper cultural meanings grounded in, yet also going beyond, an emotionally and existentially experienced social reality, which is intersubjectively shared and filtered by various groups of readers and cultural intermediaries. The epistemological advantage gained by overcoming the assumed inferiority of literature is that cultural sociological research unlocks a whole new area for understanding the meanings of social life, especially its non-discursive dimensions. The research model I propose for a new sociology of literature adopts the landscape of meaning concept developed by Isaac Reed in combination with the aesthetic structuralism of Czech linguist Jan Mukařovský. This model will be demonstrated through an interpretive analysis of the Czech novel Sestra (published in English as City Sister Silver) by Jáchym Topol.

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Section: Analysis Of Sistermentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: The Question Of Literature As Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Question Of Literature As Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Question Of Literature As Sociologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analysis Of Sistermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Theorizing the Social Through Literary Fiction: For a New Sociology of Literature

Váňa

2020

Cultural Sociology

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The Sociological Truth of Fiction: The Aesthetic Structure of a Novel and the Iconic Experience of Reading

Váňa

2022

The Cultural Sociology of Reading

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In the absence of an adequate social science, critics and novelists, dramatists and poets have been the major, and often the only, formulators of private troubles and even of public issues. Art does express such feelings … but still not with the intellectual clarity required for their understanding or relief today. (Mills 1959, p. 18) Modified version of article "Knowing through feeling: the aesthetic structure of a novel and the iconic experience of reading."

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In search of an adequate novel on the democratic changes of 1989/1990. A paradigmatic approach

Trepte

2020

Wolność I Solidarność

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Literary debates on Central Europe often concern the problems of the democratic breakthrough in the former Eastern bloc. Central Europe is also a common cultural and literary heritage; however, it must be shown how literary visions resonated in specific discussions and literary works in various countries before and after the democratic transformation of 1989/1990. Revolutionary events in Poland resulted in the “Autumn of Nations”, and the expectations of readers and critics for a suitable novel about the breakthrough and transformation process were high.

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City Sister Silver

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Theorizing the Social Through Literary Fiction: For a New Sociology of Literature

Theorizing the Social Through Literary Fiction: For a New Sociology of Literature

The Sociological Truth of Fiction: The Aesthetic Structure of a Novel and the Iconic Experience of Reading

In search of an adequate novel on the democratic changes of 1989/1990. A paradigmatic approach

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