This book explores the ways in which capitalism shapes how modern Western European literary authors and social theorists have reflected upon the economic formation of the subject and subjectivity. The contributions engage with the imperatives of productivity, notions of success and failure, the construction of work cultures and environments.

This book explores how capitalism shapes the formation of the economic subject in modern European writing. How are subject positions determined by the subject's relationship to money and work? How fair is a society that predicates social inclusion upon employment? And what happens when full employment is impossible? The volume traces how literary authors and social theorists have answered these questions in different social and historical contexts from the nineteenth century to the present day. The contributions confront the imperatives of productivity, notions of success and failure, the construction of work cultures and environments, the (in)visibility of certain labour groups, and the implications of the body as a productive site.

Autorentext

Aileen Behrendt holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Potsdam. Her research interests include modernist and interwar literature, gender studies, and British comedy. Nicholas Courtman holds a PhD in German studies from the University of Cambridge. His next project examines West German citizenship law since 1949.

Inhalt

Economic subject - work - capitalism - neoliberalism - Marx - literary critique - Georges Bataille - Baudelaire - Walter Benjamin - Bartleby - Gender and Work - Alan Hollinghurst - Elfriede Jelinek - Jean Rhys