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Johannesburg Drift: Variations of the Uncanny in Ivan Vladislavić’s The Exploded View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2020

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Abstract

This article focuses on some of the major scenes of the uncanny in Ivan Vladislavić’s The Exploded View. It identifies, describes, and connects the multiple registers of the uncanny operative in The Exploded View. It considers these multiple registers of the uncanny as parts of an overarching aesthetic framework discernible in the novel. This aesthetic framework, what we could call Vladislavić’s aesthetic of the uncanny, is discussed with a focus on three constituent and dynamic levels of activity: the formal level (textual repetition), the psychosocial level (“the political uncanny” and psychogeography), and the historical level. The article ultimately makes a case for using the aforementioned levels of the uncanny as productive frames for reading Vladislavić’s novel.

Keywords

Johannesburgpostapartheiduncanny
Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 80 - 93
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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