ABSTRACT

Between the end of the Cold War and the financial crash of 2008, liberalism dominated the geopolitical stage, although it faced challenges. In his 2005 novel Saturday, Ian McEwan constructs a self-confident liberal protagonist facing the heterogeneity of the world. This novel’s engagement with the processes of identity formation can be discerned in some detail when read in light of John Rawls’s idea of public reason. By concentrating on formal debating spaces particularly, this reading discovers an iterative process of identity formation and social construction in the novel, in which the success or failure of directed dialogic exchanges shapes both personal identity and the chance for social change. The reader is presented with the potential for reimagined forms of and arenas for liberal debate to respond to the complexity of the world.

摘要

在冷战结束和2008年金融危机之间，尽管自由主义面临挑战，但它主宰了地缘政治舞台。在他2005年的小说《星期六》中，伊恩·麦克尤恩（Ian McEwan）构造了一个自信的自由派主角，面对世界的异质性。当根据约翰·罗尔斯（John Rawls）的公共理性思想来阅读时，这本小说与身份形成过程的互动可以被更详细地辨别出来。通过特别关注形式上的辩论空间，这种阅读发现了小说中身份形成和社会建构的反复过程，其中定向对话交流的成败既塑造了个人身份，又改变了社会变革的机会。向读者展示了重新构想的形式和竞技场进行自由辩论以应对世界复杂性的潜力。