Technology And Postmodern Subjectivity In Don Delillo S Novels

Author : Randy Laist
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Literature and technology
ISBN : 1433108410

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Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels by Randy Laist Pdf

More than any other major American author, Don DeLillo has examined the manner in which contemporary American consciousness has been shaped by the historically unique incursion into daily life of information, military, and consumer technologies. In DeLillo's fictions, technological apparatuses are not merely set-pieces in the characters' environments, nor merely tools to move the plot along, they are sites of mystery and magic, whirlpools of space-time, and convex mirrors of identity. Television sets, filmic images, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, computers, and nuclear bombs are not simply objects in the world for DeLillo's characters; they are psychological phenomena that shape the possibilities for action, influence the nature of perception, and incorporate themselves into the fabric of memory and identity. DeLillo is a phenomenologist of the contemporary technoscape and an ecologist of our new kind of natural habitat. Through a close reading of four DeLillo novels, Technology and Postmodern Subjectivity in Don DeLillo's Novels examines the variety of modes in which DeLillo's fictions illustrate the technologically mediated confluence of his human subjects and the field of cultural objects in which they discover themselves. The model of interactionism between human beings and technological instruments that is implicit in DeLillo's writing suggests significant applications both to the study of other contemporary novelists as well as to contemporary cultural studies.

Author : Stacey Olster
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2011-02-17
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781441182470

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Don DeLillo by Stacey Olster Pdf

A collection of original, stimulating interpretations of key texts by Don DeLillo, designed for students and edited and written by leading scholars in the field. The book offers new perspectives on two of the most important pre-millennial novels by any American writer Mao II and Underworld and the first extended discussions of Falling Man, DeLillo's exploration of 9/11 and its aftermath. An American Studies approach to the texts brings together both established DeLillo scholars and other academics whose interdisciplinary methodologies drawn from history, ethnic studies, new economic criticism, women's studies, art history, and urban studies shed new light on DeLillo's work and demonstrate its wide-ranging significance in contemporary American culture.

Author : Randy Laist
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 574 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:320813793

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American Environments by Randy Laist Pdf

Author : Laila Sougri
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2023-09-04
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000928853

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Representations of Technoculture in Don DeLillo’s Novels by Laila Sougri Pdf

This book is the first to explore technoculture in all of Don DeLillo’s novels. From Americana (1971) to The Silence (2020), the American author anatomizes the constantly changing relationship between culture and technology in overt and layered aspects of the characters’ experiences. Through a tendency to discover and rediscover technocultural modes of appearance, DeLillo emphasizes settings wherein technological progress is implicated in cultural imperatives. This study brings forth representations of such implication/interaction through various themes, particularly perception, history, reality, space/architecture, information, and the posthuman. The chapters are based on a thematic structure that weaves DeLillo’s novels with the rich literary criticism produced on the author, and with the various theoretical frameworks of technoculture. This leads to the formulation and elaboration on numerous objects of research extracted from DeLillo's novels, namely: the theorization of DeLillo’s "radiance in dailiness," the investigation of various uses of technology as an extension, the role of image technologies in redefining history, the reconceptualization of the ethical and behavioral aspects of reality, the development of tele-visual and embodied perceptions in various technocultural spaces, and the involvement of information technologies in reconstructing the beliefs, behaviors, and activities of the posthuman. One of the main aims of the study is to show how DeLillo’s novels bring to light the constant transformation of technocultural everydayness. It is argued that though such transformation is confusing or resisted at times, it points to a transitional mode of being. This transitional state does not dehumanize DeLillo’s characters; it reveals their humanity in a continually changing world.

Author : Jacqueline A. Zubeck
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2017-10-04
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781498548670

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Don DeLillo after the Millennium by Jacqueline A. Zubeck Pdf

Don DeLillo after the Millennium: Currents and Currencies examines all the author’s work published in the 21st century: The Body Artist, Cosmopolis, Falling Man, Point Omega, and Zero K, the plays Love-Lies-Bleeding and The Word for Snow, and the short stories in The Angel Esmeralda. What topic doesn’t DeLillo tackle? Cyber-capital and currency markets, ontology and intelligence, global warming and cryogenics, Don DeLillo continues to ponder the significance of present cultural currents and to anticipate the waves of the future. Performance art and ethics, drama and euthanasia, space studies and the constrictions of time, DeLillo perspicaciously reads our culture, giving voice to the rhythms of our vernacular and diction. Rich and resonant, his work is so multifaceted in its attention that it accommodates a wide variety of critical approaches while its fine and filigreed prose commends him to a poetic appreciation as well. Don DeLillo after the Millennium brings together an international cast of scholars who examine DeLillo’s work from many critical perspectives, exploring the astonishing output of an author who continues to tell our stories and show us ourselves.

Author : Christina Cavedon
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2015-09-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004305984

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Cultural Melancholia: US Trauma Discourses Before and After 9/11 by Christina Cavedon Pdf

Applying melancholia as an analytical concept, Christina Cavedon’s Cultural Melancholia: US Trauma Discourses Before and After 9/11 discusses novels by Jay McInerney and Don DeLillo in light of an American cultural malaise pre-dating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Author : Katherine Da Cunha Lewin,Kiron Ward
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2018-10-04
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781350040885

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Don DeLillo by Katherine Da Cunha Lewin,Kiron Ward Pdf

Don DeLillo is widely regarded as one of the most significant, and prescient, writers of our time. Since the 1960s, DeLillo's fiction has been at the cutting edge of thought on American identity, globalization, technology, environmental destruction, and terrorism, always with a distinctively macabre and humorous eye. Don DeLillo: Contemporary Critical Perspectives brings together leading scholars of the contemporary American novel to guide readers through DeLillo's oeuvre, from his early short stories through to 2016's Zero K, including his theatrical work. As well as critically exploring DeLillo's engagement with key contemporary themes, the book also includes a new interview with the author, annotated guides to further reading, and a chronology of his life and work.

Author : Andrew Mangham,Daniel Lea
Publisher : Liverpool English Texts and St
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781786940520

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The Male Body in Medicine and Literature by Andrew Mangham,Daniel Lea Pdf

With the dawn of modern medicine there emerged a complex range of languages and methodologies for portraying the male body as prone to illness, injury and dysfunction. Using a variety of historical and literary approaches, this collection explores how medicine has interacted with key moments in literature and culture.

Author : Stephanie Boluk,Wylie Lenz
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2011-07-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786486731

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Generation Zombie by Stephanie Boluk,Wylie Lenz Pdf

Growing from their early roots in Caribbean voodoo to their popularity today, zombies are epidemic. Their presence is pervasive, whether they are found in video games, street signs, hard drives, or even international politics. These eighteen original essays by an interdisciplinary group of scholars examine how the zombie has evolved over time, its continually evolving manifestations in popular culture, and the unpredictable effects the zombie has had on late modernity. Topics covered include representations of zombies in films, the zombie as environmental critique, its role in mass psychology and how issues of race, class and gender are expressed through zombie narratives. Collectively, the work enhances our understanding of the popularity and purposes of horror in the modern era. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Author : Konstantinos Blatanis,Theodora Tsimpouki
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2017-05-11
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781443893787

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War on the Human by Konstantinos Blatanis,Theodora Tsimpouki Pdf

The essays in this collection explore the question of the human, both as a contested concept and as it relates to, and functions within, the wider global conjuncture. The authors explore the theoretical underpinnings of the term “human,” inviting the reader to reflect upon the contemporary human condition, to identify opportunities and threats in the changes ahead, and to determine what aspects of our species we should abandon or strive to maintain. The volume approaches these ideas from a myriad of perspectives, but the authors are united in their abstention from rejecting humanism outright or, indeed, fully endorsing posthumanism‘s teleological narrative of accelerated progress and perfectability. Instead, the authors argue that the term “human” itself is better understood as a concept perpetually undergoing revision, and is necessarily subject to scrutiny. The contributors here are thus concerned with investigating the following questions: What does it mean to be human, or to have a self? What is the current place or status of the human in the contemporary world? As technology is increasingly used to modify our bodies and minds, to what extent should we alter – and how can we improve – our very understanding of human nature? The authors contend that literature is the art form best placed to answer these questions. In its dynamism and discursiveness, literature has the capacity to both reflect dominant discourses and ideologies, as well as to generate and even anticipate social change; to critique and refine conventional ideas and existing cultural modes, and to envision new possibilities for the future. The human and its literary representation, in other words, are inherently intertwined.

Author : Christine Muller
Publisher : Springer
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2017-01-20
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783319501550

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September 11, 2001 as a Cultural Trauma by Christine Muller Pdf

This book investigates the September 11, 2001 attacks as a case study of cultural trauma, as well as how the use of widely-distributed, easily-accessible forms of popular culture can similarly focalize evaluation of other moments of acute and profoundly troubling historical change. The attacks confounded the traditionally dominant narrative of the American Dream, which has persistently and pervasively featured optimism and belief in a just world that affirms and rewards self-determination. This shattering of a worldview fundamental to mainstream experience and cultural understanding in the United States has manifested as a cultural trauma throughout popular culture in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Popular press oral histories, literary fiction, television, and film are among the multiple, ubiquitous sites evidencing preoccupations with existential crisis, vulnerability, and moral ambivalence, with fate, no-win scenarios, and anti-heroes now pervading commonly-told and readily-accessible stories. Christine Muller examines how popular culture affords sites for culturally-traumatic events to manifest and how readers, viewers, and other audiences negotiate their fallout.

Author : Sorcha Ní Fhlainn
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2010-05-12
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780786444007

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The Worlds of Back to the Future by Sorcha Ní Fhlainn Pdf

A critical examination of the cultural, cinematic, and historical contexts of the Back to the Future trilogy, this book provides a multi-focal representation of the trilogy from several interdisciplinary fields, including philosophy, literature, music, pop culture, and media and gender studies. Topics include sexual symbolism in the trilogy and the oedipal plotting of the first film; nostalgia and the suburban dream in the cultural climate of the 1980s; generic play and performance throughout the trilogy; the emotional and narrative force provided by the films' renowned musical scores; the trilogy's post-modern references and allusions to the Western genre; female representations across the trilogy; and the Lacanian philosophical constructs in the characterizations of Doc Brown and George and Marty McFly.

Author : Dawn Keetley,Angela Tenga
Publisher : Springer
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2016-12-21
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781137570635

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Plant Horror by Dawn Keetley,Angela Tenga Pdf

This collection explores artistic representations of vegetal life that imperil human life, voicing anxieties about our relationship to other life forms with which we share the earth. From medieval manuscript illustrations to modern works of science fiction and horror, plants that manifest monstrous agency defy human control, challenge anthropocentric perception, and exact a violent vengeance for our blind and exploitative practices. Plant Horror explores how depictions of monster plants reveal concerns about the viability of our prevailing belief systems and dominant ideologies— as well as a deep-seated fear about human vulnerability in an era of deepening ecological crisis. Films discussed include The Day of the Triffids, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wicker Man, Swamp Thing, and The Happening.

Author : Randy Laist
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2014-01-10
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780786485888

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Looking for Lost by Randy Laist Pdf

Lost has received widespread acclaim as one of the most innovative, intelligent, and influential dramatic series in television history. Central to Lost’s success has been its capacity to evoke audience interpretations of its mysteries, undiminished even with the series’ definitive conclusion. This collection of fifteen essays by critics, academics, and philosophers examines the complete series from a diverse but interconnected array of perspectives. Complementary and occasionally conflicting interpretations of the show’s major themes are presented, including the role of time, fate and determinism, masculinity, parenthood, and the threat of environmental apocalypse.

Author : Christopher Schaberg,Robert Bennett
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2014-10-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781623561932

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Deconstructing Brad Pitt by Christopher Schaberg,Robert Bennett Pdf

The reactions evoked by images of and stories about Brad Pitt are many and wide-ranging: while one person might swoon or exclaim, another rolls his eyes or groans. How a single figure provokes such strong, often opposing emotions is a puzzle, one elegantly explored and perhaps even solved by Deconstructing Brad Pitt. Co-editors Christopher Schaberg and Robert Bennett have shaped a book that is not simply a multifaceted analysis of Brad Pitt as an actor and as a celebrity, but which is also a personal inquiry into how we are drawn to, turned on, or otherwise piqued by Pitt's performances and personae. Written in accessible prose and culled from the expertise of scholars across different fields, Deconstructing Brad Pitt lingers on this iconic actor and elucidates his powerful influence on contemporary culture. The editors will be donating a portion of their royalties to Pitt's Make It Right foundation.