<p>This dissertation is concerned with the relationships between experiments in literature, science, and politics in twentieth-century United States culture. I argue that the three can be considered together by understanding "experimentation" as a set of processes rather than a method, and highlighting the centrality of writing and reading to experiments in all three arenas. Drawing on scientist Ludwik Fleck's concept of "valuable experiments," I read specific experiments in each field in conversation with the others, highlighting the ways in which science and politics require aesthetic structures, the ways in which science and literature reconfigure politics, and the ways in which politics and literature can intervene in and reconfigure scientific practices. Ultimately, I try to develop a reading practice that can make visible the shared transformative capacities of science, literature, and radical politics.</p><p>In the course of three chapters, I analyze the formal and conceptual innovations of writers such as William Burroughs, Ralph Ellison, and Carson McCullers, who were intimately affected by the uses of experimental science in corrective institutional practice. In doing so, I develop a concept of "experimental literature" that is distinct from avant-garde literature and can account for the investments that these writers share with scientists such as Albert Hofmann, Albert Einstein, and Margaret Mead. I argue that experimental writers denature literary genres that depend on coherent subjects, transparent reality, and developmental progress in order to disrupt similar assumptions that underpin positivist science. By understanding valuable experimental science and writing as continuous challenges to standardized scientific knowledge, I show how these writers contribute to ongoing radical social projects of queer and black radical traditions--such as those of George Jackson and the Combahee River Collective--which are grounded in knowledge as an aesthetic and political practice.</p> / Dissertation

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2004. / Chair: Susan Gubar.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2004. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-01, Section: A, page: 0177. Chair: Susan Gubar. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 12, 2006).

The loneliness theme of Carson McCullers' fiction falls into three divisions or levels. And because of her focus on the individual, her general theme of loneliness as it results from human isolation is universal. She develops her "broad principal theme" through an examination of human characteristics common to all human beings. In expressing her concept of isolation as a human condition, however, she presents loneliness as she believes it exists in her own culture, and, for this reason, her works present a loneliness that results from American cultural attitudes and is tempered by a Southern sense of nostalgia. After first establishing an understanding of McCullers' basic theme through an analysis of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, this study analyzes the nature of the Southern tradition and its influence on the criticism of her fiction with particular focus on the problems of determining to what degree her Southern settings inhibit the interpretation of her works beyond a regional perspective. A comparison of thematic elements, events, and characterization in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter to nonfiction critical discussions of American culture in The Image by Daniel Boorstin and The Pursuit of Loneliness by Philip Slater shows that the social context and the theme of isolation in the novel reflect a condition of life that is American, not distinctively Southern. The final portion of this study continues the analysis of McCullers' basic theme in Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Member of the Wedding, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, and Clock Without Hands, comparing elements of these later works to The Image and The Pursuit of Loneliness in order to demonstrate the particularly American loneliness of her characters and the value of her works to the tradition of American novel.

LD2668 .T4 1966 C37 / Master of Science

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 214 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-211).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 1999. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-182). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9955914.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter thrust Carson McCullers onto the literary scene at the age of 23. The year was 1940, and anticapitalistic fervor was at its peak. McCullers, familiar with the writings of Karl Marx, expresses in this novel her concern for the exploited classes, her disdain for a materialistic society that keeps the masses oppressed, and her conviction that societal reform was desperately needed. Marxist theory is evident in every aspect of this novel, from the characters to the setting. Alienation, failure to communicate, poverty, and an atmosphere of despair permeate the work. A product of the Great Depression era, McCullers was familiar with poverty; like many other intellectuals of the time, she embraced Marxism for its commitment to rid the world of this evil. This novel, arguably her finest, displays the influence that Marxist philosophy had on McCullers’s perception of society.

No description available.