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Doubling Down on the Politics of Fear, Opening Up the Politics of Hope

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Joseph Conrad and Postcritique

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Abstract

The convergence of postcritique and Terrorism Studies underwrites new readings of Joseph Conrad’s political fiction. Correcting popular conceptions, experts in Terrorism Studies report that terrorists are not fanatics. Conrad’s political fiction is consistent with this finding: his anarchists illustrate how ordinary people can become terrorists. He portrays political terrorists and government agents as counterparts, similar in their quest for autonomy and solidarity despite their antithetical affiliations. Recognizing the lethal power of autocracy and terrorism, the tyranny of the police and the tyranny of the revolutionists, Conrad offers hopeful alternatives to these forces. In contrast to the suspicious stance of critique, a postcritical reading considers the possibility that Conrad’s hope is sincere.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Molly Ball, “Donald Trump and the Politics of Fear,” The Atlantic, September, 2, 2016: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-fear/498116/.

  2. 2.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, ed. Roger Osborne and Paul Eggert (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 89.

  3. 3.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 6.

  4. 4.

    Frederick Karl and Laurence Davies, eds., The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, Vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 348–49.

  5. 5.

    Rita Felski, “Postcritical Reading,” American Book Review 38, no. 5 (July/August 2017): 4.

  6. 6.

    Rita Felski, “Postcritical Reading,” 4.

  7. 7.

    Rita Felski, Uses of Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 14.

  8. 8.

    Christopher Castiglia, The Practices of Hope: Literary Criticism in Disenchanted Times (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 3.

  9. 9.

    Christopher Castiglia, Practices of Hope, 4.

  10. 10.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art: A Study of Conrad’s “Under Western Eyes” (Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1996), 218.

  11. 11.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art, 226.

  12. 12.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art, 238–39.

  13. 13.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art, 239.

  14. 14.

    Keith Carabine, “Under Western Eyes,” in The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, ed. J. H. Stape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 122.

  15. 15.

    John G. Peters, Joseph Conrad’s Critical Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 11, 30, 42, and 43.

  16. 16.

    Avrom Fleishman, Conrad’s Politics: Community and Anarchy in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), 69.

  17. 17.

    Keith Carabine, “Under Western Eyes,” 133.

  18. 18.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art, 221.

  19. 19.

    Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative Politics 13, no. 4 (1981): 390.

  20. 20.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” A Set of Six (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1923), 146–47.

  21. 21.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 147.

  22. 22.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 147.

  23. 23.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 149.

  24. 24.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 157.

  25. 25.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 156.

  26. 26.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 158.

  27. 27.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 158.

  28. 28.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 159.

  29. 29.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 159.

  30. 30.

    Joseph Conrad, “An Anarchist,” 160.

  31. 31.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” A Set of Six (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1923), 75.

  32. 32.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 76.

  33. 33.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 77.

  34. 34.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 77.

  35. 35.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 84.

  36. 36.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 85.

  37. 37.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 85.

  38. 38.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 93.

  39. 39.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 99.

  40. 40.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 100.

  41. 41.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 94.

  42. 42.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 83.

  43. 43.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 83.

  44. 44.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 86.

  45. 45.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 96–97.

  46. 46.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 102.

  47. 47.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 102.

  48. 48.

    Joseph Conrad, “The Informer,” 82.

  49. 49.

    Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, “Where does the Joke Come in?: Ethics and Aesthetics in Conrad’s ‘The Informer,’” Epoque Conradienne 19 (1993): 45.

  50. 50.

    Diana Culbertson, “‘The Informer’ as Conrad’s Little Joke,” Studies in Short Fiction 11 (1974): 432.

  51. 51.

    Diana Culbertson, “Conrad’s Little Joke,” 431.

  52. 52.

    Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, ed. Bruce Harkness and S. W. Reid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 58.

  53. 53.

    Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, 15.

  54. 54.

    Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, 133.

  55. 55.

    Ford Madox Hueffer, “English Review, December 1911–March 1912, 69–83,” in Conrad: The Critical Heritage, ed. Norman Sherry (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), 242.

  56. 56.

    Robert F. Haugh, “Joseph Conrad and Revolution,” College English 10, no. 5 (1949): 274.

  57. 57.

    Frederick R. Karl, “The Rise and Fall of Under Western Eyes,” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13, no. 4 (March, 1959): 317.

  58. 58.

    John Hagan, “Conrad’s Under Western Eyes: The Question of Razumov’s ‘Guilt’ and ‘Remorse,’” Studies in the Novel 1, no. 3 (1969): 310.

  59. 59.

    John Hagan, “Razumov’s ‘Guilt’ and ‘Remorse,’” 310–11.

  60. 60.

    John Hagan, “Razumov’s ‘Guilt’ and ‘Remorse,’” 314.

  61. 61.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 6.

  62. 62.

    John Hagan, “Razumov’s ‘Guilt’ and ‘Remorse,’” 316.

  63. 63.

    John Hagan, “Razumov’s ‘Guilt’ and ‘Remorse,’” 316–17.

  64. 64.

    John Hagan, “Razumov’s ‘Guilt’ and ‘Remorse,’” 320.

  65. 65.

    Joseph Conrad, “Autocracy and War,” The North American Review 181, no. 584 (July 1905): 44.

  66. 66.

    Joseph Conrad, “Autocracy and War,” 44.

  67. 67.

    Joseph Conrad, “Autocracy and War,” 40.

  68. 68.

    Joseph Conrad, “Autocracy and War,” 47.

  69. 69.

    Jennifer Malia, “Sensationalized Stories of Russian Revolutionary Terrorism in Under Western Eyes,” in Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad, ed. Agata Szczeszak-Brewer (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2015), 175.

  70. 70.

    Jennifer Malia, “Sensationalized Stories,” 176.

  71. 71.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 23.

  72. 72.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 24–25.

  73. 73.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 23.

  74. 74.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 24.

  75. 75.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 61.

  76. 76.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 54.

  77. 77.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 65.

  78. 78.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 64.

  79. 79.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 28.

  80. 80.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 35.

  81. 81.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 33.

  82. 82.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 36.

  83. 83.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 53.

  84. 84.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 57.

  85. 85.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 43.

  86. 86.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 69.

  87. 87.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 70.

  88. 88.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 72.

  89. 89.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 66.

  90. 90.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 108.

  91. 91.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 252.

  92. 92.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 252.

  93. 93.

    Phyllis Toy, “Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes: The Language of Politics and the Politics of Language,” in Joseph Conrad: East European, Polish and Worldwide, ed. Wieslaw Krajka (East European Monographs, 1999), 51.

  94. 94.

    Phyllis Toy, “The Language of Politics and the Politics of Language,” 51.

  95. 95.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art, 172.

  96. 96.

    Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art, 173.

  97. 97.

    Avrom Fleishman, Conrad’s Politics, 242.

  98. 98.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 58.

  99. 99.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 58.

  100. 100.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 102.

  101. 101.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 129.

  102. 102.

    Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 60.

  103. 103.

    Andrzei Busza, “Under Western Eyes and ‘The Theatre of the Real,’” in “Under Western Eyes”: Centennial Essays, ed. Allan H. Simmons, J. H. Stape, and Jeremy Hawthorn (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi: 2011), 131.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Joyce Wexler

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Correspondence to Joyce Wexler .

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  1. Department of English, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Siu Lek Yuen, Hong Kong

    Jay Parker

  2. Department of English, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Joyce Wexler

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Wexler, J. (2021). Doubling Down on the Politics of Fear, Opening Up the Politics of Hope. In: Parker, J., Wexler, J. (eds) Joseph Conrad and Postcritique. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72499-3_4

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