Building worlds: dialectical materialism as method in China Mieville's Bas-lag.(Report): An article from: Extrapolation

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From the author: This essay examines the method China Mieville uses to create his fictional world Bas-Lag. Following Carl Freedman's arguments about the Marxist poetics that serve as the theoretical base for Mieville's fiction, Mieville's method corresponds directly to the method outlined by Marx in The Grundrisse. This method involves the concentration of many abstract determinations in order to create a concrete world. The results of this concentrative method yield a vast generic and stylistic monstrosity, in this case Bas-Lag. Therefore, I will argue the form of world creation is generic overdetermination--understood as the accumulation, interaction, and mutual subversion of the voices, styles, genres, and discourses that present that world--and that this form corresponds to the era of late, global capital.

Citation Details
Title: Building worlds: dialectical materialism as method in China Mieville's Bas-lag.(Report)
Author: Rich Paul Cooper
Publication:Extrapolation (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2009
Publisher: Extrapolation
Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Page: 212(12)

Article Type: Report

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