In search of a new epistemology of the urban in the writing of Ivan Vladislavić

Title: In search of a new epistemology of the urban in the writing of Ivan Vladislavić
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2018, vol. 44, iss. 2, pp. [105]-129
Extent
[105]-129
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
This article looks at Ivan Vladislavić's literary explorations of the urban in post- apartheid South Africa, notably those concentrating on and around the city of Johannesburg, drawing examples from The Restless Supermarket (2001), Portrait with Keys: the City of Johannesburg Unlocked (2006), and The Exploded View (2004). Reading Vladislavić, the article traces the writer's involvement with categories, methods and cartographies through which urbanity and urban life after apartheid could be addressed and understood. A point of departure for the discussion is the epistemological crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which challenged the positivist policy in urban research, thereby destabilising the intellectual foundations of urban as well as literary studies concentrating on urbanism. The analysis, recognising the inadequacy of the earlier categories related to the concept of the bounded city, concentrates on a search for new ways of knowing and investigating the increasingly complex urbanity.
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