Literature After Ranciére: Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans and Gibson's Neuromancer

Abstract

SummaryIn this article the implications of Jacques Ranciére's far-reaching notions of “the distribution of the sensible”, “dissensus” and the “three regimes of art” (particularly for literature) are explored. Kazuo Ishiguro's roman noir entitled When We Were Orphans and William Gibson's dark science fiction novel Neuromancer are examined to demonstrate the novelty of Ranciére's thought, in terms of which the cherished categories of literary orthodoxy are surpassed. Specifically, Ranciére challenges the usual distinction between premodern “representational literature” and modern self-referential literature, and introduces a radically historical manner of appropriating the art and literature of an era. His distinction between three regimes of art (the “ethical regime of images”, the “representative regime of the arts” and the “aesthetic regime of art”) are fundamental in understanding the capacity of art and literature to contribute discursively to the “(re)distribution of the sensible”, or the symbolic (re)configuration of social and political space, by disrupting the conventional space of the “sensible” through “dissensus”.