Time in the 21 st Century British Novel Dr Caroline Edwards

1. FICTIONS OF THE NOT YET Time in the 21st Century British Novel Dr Caroline Edwards Lecturer in English, University of Lincoln cedwards@lincoln.ac.uk

2. Writers of the Not Yet

3. Investigating time in fiction: the 3 challenges (1) Overcoming the hypertrophy of memory (2) Overcoming social atomisation (3) Overcoming the future-as-expanded-present

4. Gulliver’s problem of scale, or,contemporary utopian theory • immanent space of open contradiction that cannot be synthesised or reconciled • (2) a dialectical space – mediatory function between subject positions or philosophical entities • (3) textual or discursive • (4) broader and radicalised mode of political and cultural opposition to hegemonic social norms • (5) this dialectical / textual site of contradiction achieves such radical alterity not through some futural projection but concretely within the presentmoment itself

5. Bloch’s concept of the Noch Nicht (Not Yet) The Principle of Hope, Vols. 1, 2, 3 (1938-1947) [1986] • Anticipatory consciousness (model of the preconscious – critique of Freud) • “Real-Possible” – concrete versus abstract utopia • The “Novum” – radically new social content • Utopian temporalities – championing of process and critique of fixity • “Warm” and “cold” streams of Marxism • Venturers Beyond the Limits Heritage of Our Times (1935) [1991] • Ungleichzeitigkeit (non-contemporaneity) Spirit of Utopia (1918) [2000] • Transmigration of spirit The Philosophy of the Future (1963) [1970] Atheism in Christianity (1968) [1972] • Natural historical times

6. Metachronous times: Refunctioning the Noch Nicht Derrida Logic of spectrality Benjamin Messianic cessation of time Bloch Venturers beyond the limits Adrian Leverkühn (Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, 1947) Angelus Novus (Paul Klee, 1920) Hamlet’s ghost (Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1599-1601)

7. CASE STUDY 1Minor utopian moments of possibility (death) Ali Smith Hotel World (Hamish Hamilton, 2001) John Burnside Glister (Cape, 2008) Jon McGregor If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Bloomsbury, 2002)

8. CASE STUDY 2Networking utopian moments (transmigration) Jeanette Winterson The PowerBook (Cape, 2000) Marina Warner The Leto Bundle (Chatto & Windus, 2001) David Mitchell Cloud Atlas (Sceptre, 2004)

9. CASE STUDY 3Co-evolutionary futures (post/apocalypse) Sam Taylor The Island at the End Of the World (Faber, 2009) Maggie Gee The Flood (Saqi, 2004) Jim Crace The Pesthouse (Picador, 2007)

10. Typology | utopian “moments of possibility” • Framework of a narratorial space outside of time – John Burnside’s Glister (2008), Maggie Gee’s The Flood (2004) • Life after death, death within life – Ali Smith’s Hotel World (2001), Jon McGregor’s Even the Dogs (2010) • Exploring the dialectic between being “stuck in time” (immanent) and “outside of time” (transcendent) – Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook (2000), David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten (1999) • Arresting time, alternative futures – Jon McGregor’s If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2001) • Networking historical times (transmigration) – Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook (2000), Marina Warner’s The Leto Bundle (2001), David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2005) • Apocalyptic pasts and futures – Maggie Gee’s The Flood (2004), Jim Crace’s The Pesthouse (2007), Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007), Sam Taylor’s The Island at the End of the World (2009)

11. If you liked this, you might also like… What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English 16-18 July 2012, University of Lincoln Weird Council: An International Conference on the Writing of China Miéville 15 September 2012, Birkbeck, University of London Maggie Gee Conference 30-31 August 2012, University of St Andrews