In the past few decades, contextualist conceptions of meaning and knowledge have gained ground in the humanities and social sciences. In literary studies the question of the consequences of contextualism for the practices and self-understanding of the discipline has become one of the most hotly contested topics. The present book addresses this issue, with the purpose of providing a corrective to these debates, which have predominantly relied on simplified notions of the text-context relationship. To this end, the author first presents a systematic account of the issues surrounding contextualism. Proceeding from that, a heterological model of interpretation is proposed which is based on a multi-level notion of context and allows for a heterology of epistemological foundations – or, «anchorages» – of meaning.

The Author: Urpo Kovala studied literature, philosophy and modern languages at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and obtained his doctoral degree in 1999. He works as researcher at the Research Centre for Contemporary Culture at the University of Jyväskylä.

: Comprehensive account of contextualism – Debates in literary studies over contextualism and its consequences for the discipline – Relationship of literary and cultural studies – Heterological model of meaning and interpretation.