Aesthetics, government, freedom

How are we to see now the relations between literature and freedom? This question is unavoidably posed by the theme of the conference ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ Literature and Liberation ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ that was organised to celebrate Graham Martinââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s life and work. It is posed too by Martinââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s own assessment of the close, almost intrinsic connection between the two in his endorsement of Arnold Kettleââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s view that ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“Literature had its own special contribution to make to that process of liberation, and the criticââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s job was to help literature have that effectââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢.1 My purpose here, however, is not to augment literatureââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“freedom effectsââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ but to probe the historical and discursive conditions which make intelligible the relations between criticism, freedom and literature that Martin advocated. I shall, in doing so, broaden my focus beyond the sphere of the specifically literary to include the relations between aesthetics and freedom more generally. The perspective from which I broach these questions is that provided by postââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“Foucauldian debates on liberal government andââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¢ the role these accord freedom not as the visââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“aââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“vis of government but as a mechanism that is central to its operations. This will involve a consideration of the respects in which the relations between literature, aesthetics, and freedom have operated as parts of a distinctive field of government rather than as an outside of government capable of furnishing the grounds for its transcendental critique in the name of liberation.