Interstitial literatures: contemporary North American writing and uneven development 1990-2015
Publication Date
July 24, 2020
Creator
Abstract
This thesis is an intervention into the burgeoning field of geocritical literary studies. It uses Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space to develop socio-spatial readings of contemporary poetry and novels and argues that these texts present a distinctly neoliberal spatiality. The thesis follows Michel Foucault in conceiving of neoliberalism as an order of normative reason, and suggests that it applies economic values and metrics to every aspect of life. It argues that uneven development is the socio-spatial manifestation of the economic logic of competition that lies at the heart of neoliberalism. These neoliberal spaces act to reveal inequality rather than conceal it as capitalism hitherto tended to. Unevenness comes to represent functional competition. The interstitial literatures under study in this thesis self-reflexively register uneven development in their form and content to explore the implications of, and possibilities of resistance to, a world made increasingly economic.
Item Type
ethesis
Thesis Type
PhD
Supervisors
Subjects (LC)
Associated Schools / Departments
Department of American and Canadian Studies
eprints ID
60984
UoN Repository URI
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Interstitial Literatures final sub.pdf
Type
Full-text
Description
Examined
Size
1.7 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9faf20916f7618a7d8dfe2ed4f3b25b8