The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture

The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culturedelves into the complex problems involved in all attempts to survive. The essays analyze survival in contemporary prose narratives, short stories, poems, dramas, and theoretical texts, but also in films and other modes of cultural practices. Addressing  diverse topics such as memory and forgetting in Holocaust narratives, stories of refugees and asylum seekers, and representations of war, the ethical implications involved in survival in texts and media are brought into a transnational critical discussion. The volume will be of potential interest to a wide range of critics working on ethical issues, the body, and the politics of art and literature.

Rudolf Freiburg is Professor of English literature at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. He is co-editor and editor of several books, including Swift: The Enigmatic Dean (1998), "But Vindicate the Ways of God to Man": Literature and Theodicy (2004), Kultbücher (2004), Literatur und Holocaust (2009), Träume (2015), Unendlichkeit (2016), D@tenflut (2017), Sprachwelten (2018) and Täuschungen (2019). He has written many articles on eighteenth-century literature (Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson), and contemporary literature (John Fowles, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Sebastian Barry).

Gerd Bayer is Professor of English literature and culture at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. He has published on contemporary and early modern literature, including Novel Horizons: The Genre Making of Restoration Fiction (2015) and on Holocaustliterature and film, most recently as guest editor of a special issue for Holocaust Studies (UK).

1. Survival: An Introductory Essay.- Part I. Survival and the Group.- 2. The Visibility of Survival: Even the Dogs and Jon McGregors Ethics of Attention.- 3. Survivors all: Affirmative Connections in Novels by Julian Barnes and Caryl Phillips.- 4. Feats of Survival: Refugee Writing and the Ethics of Representation.- 5. Surviving Trauma in the Female Neo-slave Narrative: Sara Collinss Neo-gothicThe Confessions of Frannie Langton.- Part II. Survival and the Individual.- 6. That was what all men became: techniques for survival: The Paradoxical Notion of Survival in Julian BarnessThe Noise of Time.- 7. Vulnerability, Empathy, and the Ethics of Survival in Graham SwiftsWish You Were Here.- 8. Stories of Dis-ease: Ethics and Survival in Dementia Narratives.- 9. Surviving: Jenny Diski, Illness, and Gratitude.- 10. Environmental Ethics of Survival: Case Study Analysis ofI am Legend and The Revenant.- Part III Survival and the Holocaust.- 11. Close Reading of a Title: OnSurvival in Auschwitz.- 12. Narrative Closure and the Whew Effect: The Ethics of Reading Narratives of Survival of the Holocaust.- 13. With All the Force of Literalness: Ruth Klügers Survivor Testimonies in Erwin Leisers We Were Ten Brothers and Thomas MitscherlichsJourneys into Life.- 14. The Four Brothers: Claude Lanzmanns War Refugee Board Interviews.