Material, literary narrative and cultural economy

Gregson, N.

Abstract

In this paper I argue that thinking about the material in cultural economy has much to gain from culture itself. Specifically, I explore the potential of literary narrative for conceptualizing and writing material within a performative cultural economy. Drawing on the industrial short stories of Primo Levi (The Periodic Table, The Wrench, A Tranquil Star), I provide a literal reading of these works, highlighting their foregrounding of material encounters, the importance of process (and not just product), and materials’ instability in process, and their connections to theorizations of economies as assemblage. The paper also explores how Levi writes material to presence using the techniques of narrative discourse, particularly mimesis. The paper concludes by arguing that narrative is a means to writing a performative cultural economy and that cultural economy needs to rekindle the arts of story-telling. Paying attention to literary narrative shows how this might be achieved.

Citation

Gregson, N. (2009). Material, literary narrative and cultural economy. Journal of Cultural Economy, 2(3), 285-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350903345520

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Dec 22, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 26, 2013
• Journal: Journal of Cultural Economy
• Print ISSN: 1753-0350
• Electronic ISSN: 1753-0369
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 285-300
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350903345520
• Keywords: Material, Literary narrative, Materiality, Primo Levi.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1501562