conflict & communication online, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2021
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Manuel Theophil
Ernst Bloch's realism of a mediate objectivity. Ideological criticism through literary texts

Following a Marxist understanding of ideology, Ernst Bloch emphasises its immanent contrariness. Besides carrying false consciousness, ideologies also always capture (at least in part) reality – a feature that criticism of ideology can build on (or in Bloch’s terminology: inherit). Subsequent to an attempt to integrate Bloch within the history of the notion of ideology, his concept of a mediate objectivity shall be used in order to examine the potential of literary texts regarding ideological criticism. By doing so, a realism will take shape that does not reproduce ideological illusiveness but is capable of sublating this very illusiveness by connecting with those parts of the ideology that signify reality. To grasp this ideological criticism within literary texts the structuralistic theory of a two-level-semiosis is used.

The author:

Manuel Theophil studied German, history and comparative literature in Greifswald and Tübingen. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Koblenz-Landau with a thesis on Ernst Bloch's aesthetics. His work focuses on Marxist and structuralist literary theory.
Address: Marie-Alexandra-Straße 3, 76135 Karlsruhe, Germany
eMail: theo@asymptote-essays.de