Description

Book Synopsis
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.

Table 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

A Desire Called America

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    A Paperback / softback by Christian Haines

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      Book details

      Publisher Fordham University Press
      Published 1 October 2019
      ISBN-13 9780823286959
      978-0823286959
      ISBN-10 0823286959
      Also in:
      Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary theory Western philosophy from c 1800

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      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.

      Table 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

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