{"title":"J.M.库切的《耻辱》中对#MeToo运动的期待","authors":"Craig Smith","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/11054","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I reconsider J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, often interpreted in the context of South Africa’s transition to post apartheid life and with an eye to the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, by instead reading it in light of the international twenty first century MeToo movement. I contend that, in retrospect, Disgrace both demonstrates affinities with MeToo and proleptically envisions, from the postcolonial periphery, the contours of the movement decades before its forceful emergence as a watershed moment in the West. Disgrace tells a story echoed in many MeToo accounts, depicting the public exposure and fall from grace of a privileged white man following his sexual exploitation of a non white student. My interests lie not in the matter of David Lurie’s potential redemption; rather, I explore Coetzee’s exposure of the persistence of institutionalized gendered and racial privileges through moments of historical transformation. I argue that Disgrace’s highlighting of its own unnarrated perspectives anticipates the forceful challenge to a lingering white heterosexual hegemony that characterizes MeToo, while at the same time exposing the perpetual marginalization of non white and non Western traumas in discourses of transitional justice in South Africa and globally.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The Anticipation of #MeToo in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace\",\"authors\":\"Craig Smith\",\"doi\":\"10.25159/1753-5387/11054\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"In this article, I reconsider J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, often interpreted in the context of South Africa’s transition to post apartheid life and with an eye to the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, by instead reading it in light of the international twenty first century MeToo movement. I contend that, in retrospect, Disgrace both demonstrates affinities with MeToo and proleptically envisions, from the postcolonial periphery, the contours of the movement decades before its forceful emergence as a watershed moment in the West. Disgrace tells a story echoed in many MeToo accounts, depicting the public exposure and fall from grace of a privileged white man following his sexual exploitation of a non white student. My interests lie not in the matter of David Lurie’s potential redemption; rather, I explore Coetzee’s exposure of the persistence of institutionalized gendered and racial privileges through moments of historical transformation. I argue that Disgrace’s highlighting of its own unnarrated perspectives anticipates the forceful challenge to a lingering white heterosexual hegemony that characterizes MeToo, while at the same time exposing the perpetual marginalization of non white and non Western traumas in discourses of transitional justice in South Africa and globally.\",\"PeriodicalId\":43700,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Literary Studies\",\"volume\":\"24 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.2000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-05-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Literary Studies\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1092\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/11054\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Literary Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1092","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/11054","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
The Anticipation of #MeToo in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace
In this article, I reconsider J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, often interpreted in the context of South Africa’s transition to post apartheid life and with an eye to the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, by instead reading it in light of the international twenty first century MeToo movement. I contend that, in retrospect, Disgrace both demonstrates affinities with MeToo and proleptically envisions, from the postcolonial periphery, the contours of the movement decades before its forceful emergence as a watershed moment in the West. Disgrace tells a story echoed in many MeToo accounts, depicting the public exposure and fall from grace of a privileged white man following his sexual exploitation of a non white student. My interests lie not in the matter of David Lurie’s potential redemption; rather, I explore Coetzee’s exposure of the persistence of institutionalized gendered and racial privileges through moments of historical transformation. I argue that Disgrace’s highlighting of its own unnarrated perspectives anticipates the forceful challenge to a lingering white heterosexual hegemony that characterizes MeToo, while at the same time exposing the perpetual marginalization of non white and non Western traumas in discourses of transitional justice in South Africa and globally.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Literary Studies publishes and globally disseminates original and cutting-edge research informed by Literary and Cultural Theory. The Journal is an independent quarterly publication owned and published by the South African Literary Society in partnership with Unisa Press and Taylor & Francis. It is housed and produced in the division Theory of Literature at the University of South Africa and is accredited and subsidised by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training. The aim of the journal is to publish articles and full-length review essays informed by Literary Theory in the General Literary Theory subject area and mostly covering Formalism, New Criticism, Semiotics, Structuralism, Marxism, Poststructuralism, Psychoanalysis, Gender studies, New Historicism, Ecocriticism, Animal Studies, Reception Theory, Comparative Literature, Narrative Theory, Drama Theory, Poetry Theory, and Biography and Autobiography.