Epilogue 189that this encourages the reader to envision a more universal and,
indeed, cosmopolitan, form of human subjectivity that seeks to
“penetrate” the “sociohistoric totality” of a given historical context.^4
A lthough Macherey’s theor y is rather abstract, in retrospect, it f its in
well with the ideational view of history that Phillips promotes in his
novels. This is especially so in The Nature of Blood , which juxtaposes
historical narratives in ways that encourage the reader to perceive
of subjectivity in a manner that is paradoxically both abstract in
its orientation to the universal but material in its insistence on the
particular. In a sense, then, the theory both yields valuable insights
into, and is enriched by, Phillips’s fiction. Indeed, it could be said
that through this reading of Phillips’s novel, I demonstrate how cos-
mopolitanism can satisfactorily integrate within its theoretical nexus
the relationship between history and the individual (although this
was not the chief aim of the analysis).
When it came to the second chapter, I employed the term “mate-
riality” more specifically in reference to the physicality of life (both
human and animal) and the material basis of power. I noted that
there have been a number of Coetzee scholars who have observed
the importance of physical suffering and “embodiment” in the writ-
er’s oeuvre. However, I took this in a new direction and suggested
that there is an overarching, materially grounded ethical “contin-
uum” at play in his work. These observations and arguments did not
draw exclusively on cosmopolitan thought, but the additional theory
that was used was not incompatible. Indeed, it might be said once
more that the process of synthesizing other materially oriented the-
ories with cosmopolitan thought, and then applying the framework
to Coetzee’s novels, yielded possibilities for the progressive devel-
opment of cosmopolitanism as a field—extending its ethical reach
beyond the realm of humanity so as to better fulfil its “universal”
goals.
My material approach in the third chapter was perhaps more in
keeping with the term’s more commonly received Marxist associa-
tions. This is not to say that I equate Marxism with cosmopolitan-
ism. As I explained in the introduction, cosmopolitanism cannot be
reduced to a single political or ideological project, particularly one
that prioritizes the socioeconomic over the cultural (although this is