{"product_id":"revolutionary-subjects","title":"Revolutionary Subjects: A Radical History of the Bildungsroman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA literary history spanning borders and centuries to explore radicalization as portrayed in fiction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTracing the evolution of socialist world literature from the nineteenth century to the present, Benjamin Kohlmann uncovers the formal repertoires through which a set of political ideals found aesthetic expression. At the heart of this study is the radical bildungsroman, a genre that subverts dominant narratives of individual formation. Broad in scope, \u003cem\u003eRevolutionary Subjects \u003c\/em\u003eexplores the work of Balestrini, Chernyshevsky, Ding Ling, Lessing, Nizan, Sartre, Weiss, Wright, and many others. These novels challenge conventional ideas of selfhood and belonging, presenting new ways to imagine the self in relation to collective struggle and global solidarity. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat People Are Saying\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Seen, for once, from a radically global perspective, as Kohlmann allows us to see it, the bildungsroman reveals a genuinely radical counter-tradition. A source of much-needed cultural sustenance in hard times.\" Bruce Robbins\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Everyone in novel studies needs to read this book! Kohlmann uncovers a counter-tradition to the traditional bildungsroman plot—the radical left bildungsroman—which is formally experimental and committed to the collective and transnational work of living and making worlds together. With bravura new readings of a vast range of novelists, from Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Nanni Balestrini to Ding Ling, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, and Doris Lessing, this is a magisterial work of criticism.\" Caroline Levine, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"We are accustomed to viewing the Bildungsroman as the realm of bourgeois consciousness, by ignoring or neglecting its dialectic complement: a radical Bildungsroman that, from the nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century, is shaped by class struggle, socialism, decolonization, and revolutions. Navigating masterfully between novels, philosophy, and politics, Benjamin Kohlmann leads us both to discover an unknown aesthetic continent and to reinterpret many loved left-wing writers. An admirable accomplishment in theory and literary criticism.\" Enzo Traverso, author of\u003cem\u003e Revolution: An Intellectual History\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBenjamin Kohlmann is Professor of English at the University of Regensburg (Germany), working on the relationship between literature and politics. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eCommitted Styles: Modernism, Politics, and Left-Wing Literature\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBritish Literature and the Life of Institutions: Speculative States\u003c\/i\u003e. He co-founded and co-edits the book\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eseries \u003ci\u003eLiterature \u0026amp; Politics \u003c\/i\u003eat Oxford University Press.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44894976278621,"sku":"9781804297278","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0562\/0826\/1213\/files\/RevolutionarySubjectsARadicalHistoryoftheBildungsroman.jpg?v=1786472732","url":"https:\/\/leftwingbooks.net\/en-us\/products\/revolutionary-subjects","provider":"Leftwingbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}