Desire Called America - Biopolitics, Utopia, and the Literary Commons

Presents interpretations of American literature and politics, focusing on the work of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William S. Burroughs, and Thomas Pynchon. Analyzes how literary texts imagine America in utopian terms, contrasting American exceptionalism to non-capitalist visions of the American future.

List of contents

Introduction: Impossibly American | 1

1. A Revolutionary Haunt: Utopian Frontiers

in William S. Burroughs's Late Trilogy | 33

2. The People and the People: Democracy and Vitalism

in Walt Whitman's 1855 Leaves of Grass | 74

3. Nobody's Wife: Affective Economies of Marriage

in Emily Dickinson | 114

4. Idle Power: The Riot, the Commune, and Capitalist Time

in Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day | 157

Coda: Assembling the Future | 205

Acknowledgments | 209

Notes | 213

Index | 241

About the author

Christian P. Haines

Summary

Presents interpretations of American literature and politics, focusing on the work of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William S. Burroughs, and Thomas Pynchon. Analyzes how literary texts imagine America in utopian terms, contrasting American exceptionalism to non-capitalist visions of the American future.

Product details

• Authors: Christian Haines
• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2019
• EAN: 9780823286959
• ISBN: 978-0-8232-8695-9
• No. of pages: 272
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Politikwissenschaft, Englisch, Literaturtheorie, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, USA, Moderne Philosophie: nach 1800