“Dünya çok fazla bizle”: Günümüz Edebî Çalışmalarının Karakteri

Yeni milenyumda edebi çalışmalar, kilit öğesi yapısökümcülük olan ve büyük K ile yazılan Kuram’dan bir paradigma kaymasıyla ayrılarak merkezine toplumu, çevreyi ve siyaseti alan, yüzünü iyileştirici/onarıcı bir itki ile geleceğe çeviren “kuram-sonrası” döneme girdi. Günümüz edebi çalışmalarında, özellikle posthümanizm ve yeni materyalizm gibi öne çıkan akımlar, postyapısalcılığın göreceliğe dayalı epistemolojisinden daha gerçekçi bir ontolojiye yönelmekte. “Kuram-sonrası” veya “Post-teori” denilen bu dönem, ‘Kuram’a aynı anda iki farklı tavırla yaklaşıyor: minnet ve eleştiri. Bir yandan kuramdan kalan entelektüel mirasa ve pratiklere çok şey borçlu olduğunu kabullenirken, diğer yandan Kuram’ın özcülük karşıtlığını veya ethos eksikliğini eleştirerek temel aksiyomlarını çağdaş ontolojik kaygılar ve motiflerle yeniden değerlendiriyor. Çağımız, terörizm, savaş, ekonomik kriz, göç, Covid 19 pandemisi, iklim değişikliği, petrol ve su krizleri, Antroposen, tüketimcilik, dijitalleşme ve demokrasi sorunu gibi birçok sorunla boğuşmakta olan kaotik bir çağ. Çağın sorunlarının getirdiği aciliyet duygusu ve bu duygunun edebiyattaki temsilleri, nihayetinde, beşeri bilimlerdeki akademisyenlerden “karakter” (temel, zihinsel ve ahlaki vizyon, ethos) ve gerçek eleştiri (değerlendirme) gibi beklentileri öne çıkarıyor. Bu makale “karakter” talebini odağına alarak günümüz edebi çalışmalarının ve bu çalışmalarda öne çıkan etik, estetik yönelimlerin ana hatlarını ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Kuram-sonrası, Etik, Estetik, Karakter, Post-postmodernizm, Edebi çalışmalar

"The World is too much with us:" The Character of Literary Studies Today

Literary studies in the new millennium are described as “post-theoretical,” which implies a paradigm shift from the deconstructive linchpin of capital-t Theory, to a more socially, politically and environmentally engaged, future-oriented, and reparative drive in our discipline. There is a change of attention from the relativist epistemology of poststructuralism to realist ontology in the new fields of study such as posthumanism and new materialism. Post-theory holds two concurrent attitudes toward Theory: acknowledgement and critique. On the one hand, it is indebted to the legacy of Theory and forms discursive practices in relation to it; on the other hand, it is critical of Theory’s anti-essentialism or lack of ethos, and reassesses its foundational axioms with contemporary ontological anxieties and motives. Ours is a chaotic century with manifold problems such as terrorism, war, economic crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, climate changes, oil and water crises, Anthropocene, consumerism, migration, digitalisation, and the question of democracy, etc. This sense of emergency, and its representations in literature, eventually, calls for “character” (essential, mental and moral vision, ethos) and genuine critique (evaluation) from the academics in humanities. This paper aims to offer an outline of the network of practices in literary studies as well as their ethical and aesthetic allegiances with this demand for “character” in mind.

Keywords:

post-theory, aesthetics, ethics, post-postmodernism, ethical turn,

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