The American ideology : plot and culture since 1945
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The American Ideology: Plot and Culture Since 1945 uncovers the emergence of an intellectual formation that had a profound effect on post-1945 US literature and politics: the practice of cultural poetics, an interpretive project that approaches culture as the 'deep structure' of meaning that animates society and politics. Scholars have offered many explanations of the development of post-1945 literature—e.g., as the rejection of American Marxism and rise of Liberalism (Michael Denning); as the politicized reengagement with 'sublime' history through increasingly fantastic narrative (Amy Elias); or as a paradoxical turn to the spiritual and supernatural in the absence of religious belief (Amy Hungerford). These interpretations, I argue, point to a more fundamental change in humanistic thought: a reification of culture as the causal epicenter of conflicts social, personal, and political. This cultural poetics developed at the intersection of New Criticism with the Cold War interest in cultural analysis, and subsequently catalyzed the most important literary innovation of the postwar era: the tactical refashioning of narrative by multicultural writers in order to speculate about the causal relationship between history, politics, and identity. The literature of the era could thus be read as a response to Lionel Trilling's assertion that "it is clearly no longer possible to think of politics except as the politics of culture." As a corrective to poetic theories of the novel, I offer a theory of narrative that focuses on its inherently causal nature and the myriad ways in which it can abstract, explain and speculate about how and why events occur—a theory that also illuminates narrative's potential as a tool for progressive politics. Contemporary literary interpretations are predominantly allegorical and synchronic in nature, treating narratives as symbolic encodings of reality. I argue, however, that narrative is more correctly understood as a diachronic process whose primary power is the ability to evaluate and project paths of action. By emphasizing the intimate link between causality and narrative form, I undertake a new historical study of post-1945 literary production, revealing that the experimental narratives of this period—traditionally classified as 'Postmodern'—are in fact formal responses to a new theory of causality grounded in the reification of culture as a material agent.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2012 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Benveniste, Michael Anthony |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, English Department |
| Primary advisor | Heise, Ursula K |
| Primary advisor | Woloch, Alex, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Heise, Ursula K |
| Thesis advisor | Woloch, Alex, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Saldívar, Ramón, 1949- |
| Advisor | Saldívar, Ramón, 1949- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Michael Benveniste. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of English. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2012. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2012 by Michael Anthony Benveniste
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