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What does falling in love have in common with the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or the fall of the Twin Towers? In the light of postmodernism's programmatic critique of a humanist notion of the subject and an emphatic understanding of events, shows that selected American novels after 2000 offer an alternative to the 'death of the subject.' As the first book to comprehensively engage with Alain Badiou's writings outside of a philosophical context, Subject of the Event analyzes five critically acclaimed novels of the new millennium-Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006), Jess Walter's The Zero (2006), Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions (2006), Paul Beatty's Slumberland (2008) and Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day (2006)-and argues that they create different 'subjects of the event' that are empowered with 'reagency.' The 'subject of the event' and its empowerment, what this book calls 'reagency,' implies that subjects only evolve out of their confrontation with the revolutionary impetus that events propel. Unlike a humanist capability of having agency, reagency is defined as a repetitive subjective praxis that is contingent upon events, which is given a concrete literary form in the novels under investigation. Sebastian Huber explores how the American penchant for events ('new beginnings,' 'clean slates,' 'apocalypse') is being critically dealt with in the novels at hand, while still offering an emphatic idea of singular disruptions that open up ways for subjects to affirm and become empowered by the new propositions of these happenings.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: America’s Subjects of Events
Chapter 1. The Question of the Event and the Question(s) of the Subject
Chapter 2. ‘You have to carry the fire’: The Reactive Subject in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006)
Chapter 3. 'With Us or Against Us’: The Obscure Subject in Jess Walter’s The Zero (2006)
Chapter 4. ‘Let us go then you and I’: The Amorous Subject in Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions (2006)
Chapter 5. ‘You’ll never be passé’: The Aesthetico-Political Subject in Paul Beatty’s Slumberland (2008)
Chapter 6. ‘There is nothing to compare it to now’: The Scientific-Political Subjects in Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006)
Conclusion: The End as Enjambment
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Sebastian Huber is Lecturer for English at the Fresenius University, Munich, Germany.
Summary
What does falling in love have in common with the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or the fall of the Twin Towers?
In the light of postmodernism’s programmatic critique of a humanist notion of the subject and an emphatic understanding of events, Subject of the Event shows that selected American novels after 2000 offer an alternative to the “death of the subject.”
As the first book to comprehensively engage with Alain Badiou’s writings outside of a philosophical context, Subject of the Event analyzes five critically acclaimed novels of the new millennium—Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), Jess Walter’s The Zero (2006), Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions (2006), Paul Beatty’s Slumberland (2008) and Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006)—and argues that they create different ‘subjects of the event’ that are empowered with “reagency.” The “subject of the event” and its empowerment, what this book calls “reagency,” implies that subjects only evolve out of their confrontation with the revolutionary impetus that events propel. Unlike a humanist capability of having agency, reagency is defined as a repetitive subjective praxis that is contingent upon events, which is given a concrete literary form in the novels under investigation. Sebastian Huber explores how the American penchant for events (“new beginnings,” “clean slates,” “apocalypse”) is being critically dealt with in the novels at hand, while still offering an emphatic idea of singular disruptions that open up ways for subjects to affirm and become empowered by the new propositions of these happenings.
Foreword
Examines the conception of events and subjects in five contemporary American novels: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), Jess Walter’s The Zero (2006), Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions (2006), Paul Beatty’s Slumberland (2008) and Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006).
Additional text
Using Alain Badiou’s philosophy, Huber defines events as nonontological, contingent, and singular ruptures. By analyzing Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), JessWalter’s The Zero (2006), Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions (2006), Paul Beatty’s Slumberland (2008), and Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006), he argues that events and subjects are two phenomena that are “inherently reciprocal.” America as a concept is fundamentally associated with emphatic events, according to Huber. His goal is to employ a theoretical approach that opposes poststructuralism and postmodernism, while also avoiding the traditional humanist conception of the subject.
