“LipServants” and Mutes: Experiencing Precarity Through the Commercial Control of Language in Tammy Baikie’s Critical Dystopia Selling LipService (2017)
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引用次数: 1
Abstract
This article notes the relevance of Selling LipService by Tammy Baikie (2017) at the contemporary moment, as it deals with capitalism, consumerism, language, branding, communication and liberty. The novel’s dystopian setting reveals characters’ precarity caused by the commercial exploitation of language. The article deploys Judith Butler’s theories of precarity, amplified by reference to Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics. It further reveals the significance of theorists’ commentaries on language, branding and critical dystopianism, used as tools to investigate the novel. The article argues that Baikie’s critical dystopia highlights challenges to precarity through the original use of language and resistance by disaffected outsiders beyond the system, allowing readers to glimpse hopeful elements of social dreaming in and beyond the text.
期刊介绍:
Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa is published bi-annually by Routledge. Current Writing focuses on recent writing and re-publication of texts on southern African and (from a ''southern'' perspective) commonwealth and/or postcolonial literature and literary-culture. Works of the past and near-past must be assessed and evaluated through the lens of current reception. Submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed by at least two referees of international stature in the field. The journal is accredited with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training.