From Avant-Garde Guerillas to Capitalistic Teamwork? Concepts of Collective Creative Writing Between Subversion and Submission

Abstract:Concepts of collective creative writing are often linked to alternative or subversive traditions. But the political significance of such writing depends on historical, social and aesthetic factors - as shown for instance by the promises and the radicalism of the historic avant-gardes that have lost much of their power today. On the one hand, subversive strategies like publishing collectively written texts under the pseudonym of Luther Blissett renew these avant-garde traditions, on the other hand, the new spirit of capitalism incorporates collective and creative ways of working, thinking and writing. It is necessary to analyse each collectively produced literary text on the basis of socio-economic, historical and literary-sociological criteria, reflecting on questions of authorship and aesthetics. Then, texts can be described as examples of either subversive or submissive literature, or as belonging to an ambiguous, or contradictory, in-between category.

ISBN:978-90-420-3273-6

Publication year:2011

Keywords:avant-garde, teamwork, creativity, collective creativity, subversion, submission, subversive literature, Gilles Deleuze, Richard Sennett, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Theodor W. Adorno, Peter Bürger, writing, empire, deconstruction

Accessibility:Closed

Review status:Peer-reviewed