Novels and the Sociology of the Contemporary (Hardcover)

Introduction: Novels and the Problem of Reality Part I: The Triple Origins of the Modern Novel 1. The Don Quixote Chronotope: Paradoxical Paradoxes, or the Games of Cervantes 2. The Rabelais Chronotope: The Mysteries of Fairground Economics 3. The English Chronotope: The Cruel Illusionism of Realism Part II: Actors, Spectators and Critics in the Sublime Theatre of the Public Arena 4. Sublime Confusion: The Aesthetics of Intensity as an Anti-Platonic Revolt 5. Diderot, the Trickster-Outsider-Critic: The Actor as God in an Enlightened World 6. Lessing, the Trickster-Outsider-Critic: The Birth of German Enlightenment Out of the Spirit of Theatre Part III: The Goethe Chronotope: in Between Panopticon and Circus 7. Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Demonic Formation and Theatrical Re-Formation 8. Wilhelm Meister as Goethe’s Self-Overcoming: From Theatrical Mission to Walking 9. Promethean Modernity in Faust: From Asserting Titanic Poiesis to Diagnosing Alchemic Technology Part IV: Beneath and Beyond Romantic Enlightenment 10. Enlightened Romantics: From German Titanism to French Satanism 11. Charles Dickens: Retrieving the Reasons of the Heart 12. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: Standing Up Again After the Demonic Splits of Reason. Conclusion: Towards the Sacrificial Carnival.