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Abstract
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The proposed research holds significance for literary studies, Foucauldian theory, and interdisciplinary discussions of modernity. First, it responds to a clear gap in Krasznahorkai scholarship by offering the first systematic examination of War & War through the combined lenses of heterotopia, archaeology, and governmentality. Scholars such as Bényei have emphasized the novel’s stylistic extremity and apocalyptic tone, yet they do not address the spatial and power-analytic frameworks that shape its deeper thematic structure (Bényei 109). The present study thus provides a necessary intervention that foregrounds how spatial institutions and epistemic fractures structure the narrative and determine its ethical and political stakes.
Second, the project advances Foucauldian literary criticism by demonstrating that Foucault’s spatial and epistemic theories can illuminate narrative dynamics beyond the historical or sociological contexts in which they are typically applied. While Hetherington and Johnson highlight the utility of heterotopia in cultural analysis, few literary studies mobilize heterotopia, archaeology, and governmentality in a coordinated manner (Hetherington 37; Johnson 798). This project therefore expands the methodological repertoire available to scholars who investigate literature’s engagement with modern regimes of knowledge and power.
Third, the study contributes to broader theoretical conversations about governance and subjectivity in late modernity. As Foucault’s analyses of biopower and security illustrate, contemporary power functions through spatial distributions, classifications, and techniques of population management (Foucault, Security 116). Krasznahorkai’s novel dramatizes these mechanisms through its representation of archives, institutional corridors, and digital networks. By articulating how the novel models the entanglement of life, space, and rule, the project complements work by scholars such as During and Soja who argue that literature
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