Abstract
Drawing on current debates on the effects of a new ‘culture of immediacy’ in the digital era, this articles analyses Wilhelm Genazino’s poetics of temporality. While the modern flâneur was still a sovereign subject capable of transforming fleeting impressions into moments of quasi-metaphysical vision, his contemporary successor is a stray self roaming an illegible urban jungle in search of intimacy. Genazino’s figures discover their non-contemporaneity with the contemporary as a creative resource that allows them to exercise temporal sovereignty in an era that is otherwise ruled by the hectic just-in-time ideology. Retreat into melancholy, the performance of private rituals, the fabrication of stories, the technique of the prolonged gaze and slowness emerge as five tactics of resistance through which Genazino’s protagonists achieve temporary anchorage in a run-away world. For Genazino literature necessarily rehabilitates the self’s Eigenzeit, thereby restoring interiority and intimacy as essential conditions of cultural connectivity.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.