1st Edition

Economics and Literature A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach

Edited By Ҫınla Akdere, Christine Baron Copyright 2018
    266 Pages
    by Routledge

    266 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Since the Middle Ages, literature has portrayed the economic world in poetry, drama, stories and novels. The complexity of human realities highlights crucial aspects of the economy. The nexus linking characters to their economic environment is central in a new genre, the "economic novel", that puts forth economic choices and events to narrate social behavior, individual desires, and even non-economic decisions. For many authors, literary narration also offers a means to express critical viewpoints about economic development, for example in regards to its ecological or social ramifications.



    Conflicts of economic interest have social, political and moral causes and consequences. This book shows how economic and literary texts deal with similar subjects, and explores the ways in which economic ideas and metaphors shape literary texts, focusing on the analogies between economic theories and narrative structure in literature and drama. This volume also suggests that connecting literature and economics can help us find a common language to voice new, critical perspectives on crises and social change.



    Written by an impressive array of experts in their fields, Economics and Literature is an important read for those who study history of economic thought, economic theory and philosophy, as well as literary and critical theory.

    1 Introduction and Overview



    ÇINLA AKDERE AND CHRISTINE BARON AND BRUNA INGRAO





    Part I



    Passions and Interest: A Comparative Study of Economic Texts and Literary Masterpieces



    2 Narratives of passions and finance in the 19th century



    BRUNA INGRAO



    3 The passions and the interests: the Sentimental Education of Gustave Flaubert



    ALPHONSO SANCHEZ



    4 Literature and Political Economy: Saint-Simon and Jean-Baptiste Say’s writings



    GILLES JACOUD



    5 Which Economic Agent Does Robinson Crusoe Represent?



    CLAIRE PIGNOL



    6 Political Economy and utilitarianism in Dickens' Hard Times



    NATHALIE SIGOT AND ÇINLA AKDERE



    PART II



    Economic Ideas and Metaphors in Literature: An Interdisciplinary Approach



    7 Concordances and dissidences between economy and literature



    JEAN-JOSEPH GOUX



    8 Economics and monetary imagination in André Gide's The Counterfeiters



    ÇINLA AKDERE AND CHRISTINE BARON



    9 ‘I Always Wanted to Have Earned My First Dollar but I Never Had’: Gertrude Stein and Money



    LAURA E. B. KEY



    10 Georges Perec’s Les Choses as the Privileged Domain of Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers



    EYÜP ÖZVEREN



    PART III



    Facing change: reflections of economic development and crises in historical and literary texts 



    11 Transforming Economic and Social Relations: Modern Economy in Novels of Uşaklıgil



    REYHAN TUTUMLU SERDAR AND ALI SERDAR



    12 Mechanization Experience in Agriculture in Turkey: The Pomegranate on the Knoll



    SELİN SEÇİL AKIN AND IŞIL ŞİRİN SELÇUK



    13 An Intertextual Analysis of the Village Novels by Village Institute Graduates: Socio-economic Scenes of the Turkish Village between 1950 and 1980



    ESRA ELİF NARTOK



    14 Theatre in Crisis, Theatre of Crisis: Economics and Contemporary Dram

    Biography

    Çınla Akdere is Lecturer of History of Economic Thought at the Department of Economics, Middle East Technical Univeristy and researcher at the Labaratory Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Economiques (PHARE), Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France.  



    Christine Baron is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Poitiers at Université de Poitiers, France.