Into Our Labours: Work and its Representation in World-Literary Perspective

Into Our Labours explores the literary representation of work since 1850, arguing that the literature of modernity is best understood in the light of the worlding of capitalism. It emphasizes the 'inaugural experience' of capitalist social relations and the consolidation, regularization, and global dispersal of capitalist development. The book proposes that the vast body of literary work engendered by these relations is best described as 'modernist' and challenges Eurocentric understandings of modernism, arguing that it is neither originally nor paradigmatically 'Western' and has broader temporal parameters.

Format: Hardback
Length: 200 pages
Publication date: 15 April 2022
Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Since 1850, the literary representation of work has been investigated in Into Our Labours, with the goal of demonstrating that the literature of modernity is best understood in the context of capitalism's globalisation. The book contends that there is a causal link between shifting patterns of work and the evolution of the genres, forms, and aesthetic approaches used in the writing that records them. The 'worlding of modernity,' particularly two facets, are given special emphasis.

The first is an 'inaugural experience of capitalist social relations,' whose literary manifestation occasionally becomes apparent through a crisis of representation. The forms of space- and time-consciousness required by life in contexts where market-oriented commodity production has become the predominant form of social labour are contrasted with inherited ways of seeing and knowing, which are now under severe strain, if not already obsolete, as the forms of sociality and solidarity, ideologies of familialism, individualism, and work, as well as relationships between the sexes and the generations, demanded by life in contexts where market-oriented commodity production has become the predominant form of social labour are counterposed.

The second is a period that corresponds to the consolidation, regularisation, and global dispersion of capitalist development.

Forms of sociality and solidarity, ideologies of familialism, individualism, and work, as well as relationships between the sexes and the generations, are all naturalised by capitalist social relations. The book contends that the only reasonable term for the vast body of literary work produced by the worlding of capitalist social relations is 'modernist,' and it then suggests that it is crucial to challenge the still-pervasive Eurocentric conceptions of modernism. Modernism is neither inherently nor paradigmatically 'Western in origin; and its temporal boundaries are significantly wider than is commonly assumed in modernist studies, extending both backward and forward in time.

Dimension: 239 x 163 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781802070101