Writing the Yugoslav Wars: Literature, Postmodernism, and the Ethics of Representation

by Dragana Obradovic

Overview

In Writing the Yugoslav Wars, Dragana Obradović analyses how the Yugoslav wars of secession helped shape the region's literary culture. Obradović argues that the crisis of the country's disintegration posed an ethical challenge to self-identified postmodernists. This book takes a transnational approach to literatures of the former Yugoslavia that have been, since the 1990s, studied separately, in line with geopolitical divisions. This post-socialist conflict was one of the moments that reshaped postmodernism for both local and international thinkers, much in the same way modernism was shaped by World War I and the advent of mechanized warfare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442629547
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/07/2016
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dragana Obradović is an associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: War, Postmodernism, and Literary Immanence

Chapter 2: The Spectacle of the Siege

Chapter 3: The Phantasmagoria and Seduction of Kitsch

Chapter 4: The Search for a Language of the Historical Present

Chapter 5: The Quickened Moral Pulse

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Nataša Kovačević

"Writing the Yugoslav Wars is an important, unique, and timely work for the field of post-Yugoslav and, broadly, Balkan literary and cultural studies."

Stijn Vervaet

"Dragana Obradović has crafted a well-written and insightful work. Most importantly, she presents an innovative argument related to the link between the evolution/transformation of literary postmodernism in Yugoslavia and the ethics and aesthetics of war writing."

Andrew Baruch Wachtel

"Dragana Obradović actually cares about literature, is a sensitive reader, and understands that literature provides a unique window onto social processes. Her willingness to consider writers from all three of the main languages and cultures that made up the former Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian linguistic space is praiseworthy. Overall, this is an excellently written book."

Editorial Reviews

'Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.'—P. Steiner, Choice Magazine vol 54:11:2017
"[Writing the Yugoslav Wars] fulfills its promise of meticulous analysis of literary discourse, and deserves praise for this."—Guido Snel, Slavic Review Vol 77:01:2020
"Dragana Obradović actually cares about literature, is a sensitive reader, and understands that literature provides a unique window onto social processes. Her willingness to consider writers from all three of the main languages and cultures that made up the former Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian linguistic space is praiseworthy. Overall, this is an excellently written book."—Andrew Baruch Wachtel, President, American University of Central Asia
"Writing the Yugoslav Wars is an important, unique, and timely work for the field of post-Yugoslav and, broadly, Balkan literary and cultural studies."—Nataša Kovačević, Department of English, Eastern Michigan University
"Dragana Obradović has crafted a well-written and insightful work. Most importantly, she presents an innovative argument related to the link between the evolution/transformation of literary postmodernism in Yugoslavia and the ethics and aesthetics of war writing."—Stijn Vervaet, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo

From the Publisher

'Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.'

Choice Magazine vol 54:11:2017 - P. Steiner

"[Writing the Yugoslav Wars] fulfills its promise of meticulous analysis of literary discourse, and deserves praise for this."

Slavic Review Vol 77:01:2020 - Guido Snel