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Accepted Paper:
Universalism and particularism in the work of J. M. Coetzee
Ana Maria Martinho
(CHAM-NOVA FCSH-UAc)
Paper short abstract:
The work Disgrace, by South African writer J. M. Coetzee, has been discussed as a paradoxical object as far as its postcolonial status is concerned. Many see its universalist message as a form of de-historicization.
Paper long abstract:
The work Disgrace (1999), by South African writer J. M. Coetzee, has been discussed as a paradoxical object as far as its postcolonial status is concerned (Poyner: 2009). In fact, many see in it an arguable universalist message and a form of de-historicization. For Attwell, when reading Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), such hypothesis on universalism should be differentiated from "strategic refusal of specificity" and historical location (1993:74). In our paper we present these two works and expect to confront some of the critique about them with our own take on the critical aspects considered above and the problem of particularity.
We will also draw brief comparisons with Mozambican fiction namely from Mia Couto and João Paulo Borges Coelho, since part of their work allows as well the discussion on the postcolonial, history and "re-worlding".