Description
invited paper given at Fascist Moral Exemplars conference, U of CambridgeThe mid twentieth century English novelist, Henry Williamson, wrote nature stories but also romantic and historical fiction, including a fifteen-volume saga that contains a relatively positive characterization of Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists. This essay considers the construction of such fascist characters through the prism of the literary imagination of Williamson readers, and more specifically through my longstanding ethnographic work with an English literary society constituted in the author’s name. I am centrally concerned with how literary society members deal with the positive depiction of fascist leaders through the stages of the reading process that they identify and describe. Do the immersive values commonly attached to their solitary reading culture, for instance, which include a strong identification with literary characters, assist or further problematize that task? And what role does their subsequent, shared practice of character evaluation play? As well as considering the treatment of characters as objects of sympathy, I explore the vital sympathies that in the imagination of literary society members tie characters to historical persons. Across the essay I engage with anthropological literature on moral exemplars, historical commentaries on the fascist cult of leadership and finally with the philosophical claims that Nussbaum makes for the moral and political consequences of fiction reading.
| Period | 2019 → … |
|---|---|
| Held at | University of Cambridge, United Kingdom |
| Degree of Recognition | International |