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THE LACK OF A FUTURE: UTOPIAN ABSENCE AND LONGING IN TWENTIETH- AND TWENTY-FIRST- CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION

Moses, Geoffrey
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1365784335

Abstract Details

2013, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
It is well-established that, in the United States in the twentieth century, it is difficult to conceive of utopia, due to a feeling that society is oppressive in a way that precludes any such thing. However, the question of the specific mechanics of utopia or lack thereof in this milieu has been neglected. I look at a number of novels that treat the question of utopia and ask what the specific contours are of this lack of utopian feeling, and in what ways utopia tries to manifest itself in spite of the difficulty of doing so. I also analyze the ways that political ways of thinking about utopia and purely personal ones intersect (or fail to do so). The particular novels are King Coal and The Coal War by Upton Sinclair, the three volumes of the U.S.A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos, The Public Burning by Robert Coover, and Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. To do this, I make extensive use of the concept of “totality,” as used by Georg Lukacs, and “potentiality,” as used by Jose Esteban Muñoz. Briefly, I argue that authors tend to think about utopia in terms of the former, which means that, if totality does not seem to be possible, neither does utopia. However, even in situations that lack totalizing possibilities, potentiality can nonetheless manifest itself, sometimes in unexpected ways, and allow for a rejuvenated, albeit different, conception of utopia. This new version of utopia seems to rely more upon the personal than the political, but in fact, we can see the ways in which political feeling can inhere in the personal, thus helping to militate against despair. While this does not provide a perfect “solution” to the problem of the difficulties inherent in utopia, it does allow the concept to persist in a way that it previously could not, and in so doing prevents us from falling into political quietism.
Floyd Kevin, PhD (Committee Chair)
Clewell Tammy, PhD (Committee Member)
Trogdon Robert, PhD (Committee Member)
Bindas Kenneth, PhD (Committee Member)
Serpe Richard, PhD (Committee Member)
215 p.
American Studies; Gender; History; Labor Relations; Literature; Modern History; Modern Literature
Utopia; Modernism; Postmodernism; Totality; Potentiality

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Moses, G. (2013). THE LACK OF A FUTURE: UTOPIAN ABSENCE AND LONGING IN TWENTIETH- AND TWENTY-FIRST- CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1365784335

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Moses, Geoffrey. THE LACK OF A FUTURE: UTOPIAN ABSENCE AND LONGING IN TWENTIETH- AND TWENTY-FIRST- CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION. 2013. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1365784335.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Moses, Geoffrey. "THE LACK OF A FUTURE: UTOPIAN ABSENCE AND LONGING IN TWENTIETH- AND TWENTY-FIRST- CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1365784335

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1365784335
829
© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.