1st Edition
The Poetics of Empowerment in David Mitchell’s Novels
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 A Poetics of Empowerment?
Zooming in on Empowerment: Concepts and Contexts
Empowerment and Literature
3 Empowering Discourse
"All Boundaries Are Conventions": David Mitchell’s Literary Playground
Chapters in an Über-book: Understanding Mitchell’s Fictional Universe
4 Empowering Characters
From Subjugation to Emancipation: Journeys of Empowerment in Cloud Atlas
Politics, Playground Bullies, Poetry: Empowerment in Black Swan Green
Culture and Genre Clashes: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
5 Empowering Readers
Reader-Response Theory, Empathy, Cognition, and Agency
David Mitchell’s Novels and the Role of the Reader
6 Conclusion: Towards a Poetics of Empowerment
Index
Biography
Eva-Maria Windberger is a postdoctoral researcher in the field of British literature and culture at the University of Trier. In 2020, she completed a Ph.D. thesis exploring strategies and functions of empowerment in the novels of David Mitchell. She is co-editor (with Ralf Hertel) of the volume Empowering Contemporary Fiction: The Impact of Empowerment in Literary Studies (2021). Her current research project focuses on the performativity of East Asian identities on the British stage.
