Practices of Planetary Relationality in Colum McCann’s Apeirogon

Marta Goszczyńska

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.13.14

Authors

Marta Goszczyńska University of Lodz https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3156-8670

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.13.14

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Keywords:

Colum McCann, Apeirogon, Christian Moraru, relationality, (the) planetary, planetarity

Abstract

For a number of critics, what we are witnessing in postmillennial Anglophone fiction is an attempt to do away with postmodern posturings of ironic distance and ethical non-commitment, and a renewed interest in questions of authenticity, empathy, responsibility and solidarity. According to Christian Moraru, one of the keenest chroniclers of contemporary culture, the shift is rooted in an understanding of the world as an interconnected system of relationality, which the critic discusses under the headings of cosmodernism and planetarity. Moraru locates the premise of this evolving cultural project in its ethical call for “a new togetherness, for a solidarity across political, ethnic, racial, religious, and other boundaries” (Cosmodernism 5), but recognizes it as leaving its imprint on the aesthetic and thematic choices made by contemporary authors. The aim of the paper is to analyze Colum McCann’s 2020 novel, Apeirogon, as indebted to this planetary vision of relationality. In particular, my intention is to trace the impact of this mindset on the narrative structure and the imaginary of the novel.

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Author Biography

Marta Goszczyńska, University of Lodz

Marta Goszczyńska is Assistant Professor in the Department of British Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz. She completed her PhD in 2006 with a dissertation that explored the hybrid nature of late twentieth-century neo-Victorian fiction. She is co-editor of Changing Ireland: Transitions and Transformations in Irish Literature and Culture (Lodz University Press, 2010), The Playful Air of Light(ness) in Irish Literature and Culture (Cambridge Scholars, 2011) and Reading Graham Swift (Lexington Press, 2020). Her research interests include women’s studies, neo-Victorianism, and narrative theory. She has published, both nationally and internationally, on such authors as William Trevor, Michèle Roberts, Sarah Waters, A. S. Byatt, Valerie Martin, Graham Swift and Michel Faber.

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