Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Νεοελληνική ΦιλολογίαLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Supervisors info:
Επόπτρια: Πέγκυ Καρπούζου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Θεωρίας Λογοτεχνίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών (ΕΚΠΑ)
Επιτροπή: Θανάσης Αγάθος, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Νεοελληνικής Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών (ΕΚΠΑ)
Επιτροπή: Δημήτρης Αγγελάτος, Καθηγητής Νεοελληνικής Φιλολογίας και Θεωρίας της Λογοτεχνίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών (ΕΚΠΑ)
Original Title:
Προς μία διαλεκτική κριτική του φασματικού είδους της ελληνικής Επιστημονικής Φαντασίας: Ουτοπία και Αλληγορία στον Νίκο Α. Μάντη και στην Ιωάννα Μπουραζοπούλου
Translated title:
Towards a dialectical criticism of the phantom genre of Greek Science Fiction: Utopia and Allegory on Nikos A. Mantis and Ioanna Mpourazopoulou
Summary:
The aim of this master thesis is to outline a project of dialectical criticism of Greek Science Fiction (SF) taking methodological tools from Marxism and especially the oeuvre of Fredric Jameson, through an hermeneutic analysis of the novels Wild Acropolis (Άγρια Ακρόπολη) and What Lot’s Wife Saw? (Τί είδε η γυναίκα του Λωτ;) by Nikos A. Mantis and Ioanna Mpourazopoulou respectively. In this context, SF is considered a genre which is closely interrelated with history and change, having the ability to question the hegemonic structure of feeling of globalization which Mark Fisher called “capitalist realism”. The first chapter is the theoretical precondition of the following, establishing the terms of a historical and dialectical genre criticism. The main aim of this chapter is to illustrate the critical characteristics of the genre of SF, focusing: 1) on a critique of Darko Suvin’s concepts of cognitive estrangement and the novum, 2) on the spatial aspects of SF and its correlation with the aesthetics of cognitive mapping proposed by Jameson and finally 3) on its ability to provoke a historical understanding of our own present situation. In the second chapter the genre of SF is (re)connected with the related terms of dystopia and utopia, the latter considered as method, before we proceed to a paradigmatic analysis of cognitive mapping on the novel Wild Acropolis by Nikos Mantis via the semiotic rectangle of Algirdas Greimas. The third chapter is the capstone of this master thesis. There we emphasize especially on Greek SF, trying to map it in the world literary field through a concise historical overview of Greek SF which focuses on the limitation of its conditions of possibility before we compose a dialectics of the concepts of phantom genre and national allegory. The concept of phantom genre highlights the invisibility of the genre of Greek SF and its incompatibility with national literature, while national allegory is a concept against the notion of the Canon and underlines the restriction of a small literature (Pascale Casanova) inside the uneven structure of the world literary system. Finally, in the last chapter we attempt an hermeneutic approach of the novel What Lot’s Wife Saw? of Ioanna Mpourazopoulou in order to link the genre of SF with allegory and to show the political unconscious of the national by means of Jameson’s theorization of the four-fold system of medieval allegory.
Main subject category:
Language – Literature
Keywords:
Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia, Allegory, Dialectics, Marxism, Cognitive Mapping, Literary Genre, Phantom Genre, National Allegory, World Literature, Canon, Fredric Jameson, Algirdas Greimas, Semiotic Rectangle, Nikos Mantis, Ioanna Mpourazopoulou
Number of references:
402
