Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons^™

Boundaries Of Knowledge: Expertise And Professionalism In British And Postcolonial Literature, Patrick Steven Herald

Theses and Dissertations--English

The social sciences have developed robust bodies of scholarship on expertise and professionalism, yet literary analyses of the two remain comparatively sparse. I address this gap in Boundaries of Knowledge by examining recent Anglophone fiction and showing that expertise and professionalism are central concerns of contemporary authors, both as subject matter in fiction and in their public identities. I argue that the novelists studied use and abuse expertise and professionalism: they critique professions as participant observers, and also borrow the mantle of expert credibility to bolster their own cultural capital while documenting the pitfalls of expertise in their fiction.

My …

At Home In The Free-Market World: The Neoliberal Cosmopolitan Man In Salman Rushdie's Fury, Mary J. Nitsch

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This article offers an exploration of the concept of cosmopolitanism in Salman Rushdie's novel, Fury. Through both Rushdie's and his protagonist's cosmopolitanism, the ambivalence of the position is revealed in particular through the latter's (un)easy access to global commodities and problematic exploitation of women. The economic and gender exploitations oddly converge in Solanka's latest creative project, the success of which glosses over the problematics of class and gender privilege. Ultimately, the protagonist’s cosmopolitanism truly impedes any critique cosmopolitanism might afford: he is readily swept up in the rising tide of the 90s financial boom and the frequently misogynist sexuality …

Regimes Of Prestige And Power: Transnational Authorship And International Acclaim In Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds, Kyle Eveleth

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This essay will examine the reception of Rutu Modan’s international-award-winning graphic novel Exit Wounds (2007) in the massive cultural centers of the United States and France by situating its success within the inter/transnational dynamics of the contemporary comics market, or what James English would term an “economy of prestige.” My essay reconsiders Exit Wounds beyond its popular status as an international phenomenon—that is, one that crosses national borders but which maintains distinctions between those nations it enters and its home state—by considering it a transnational work—one which blurs the lines between nation-states in its form, function, and reception. To do …

Resonant Texts: Sound, Noise, And Technology In Modern Literature, Leah Hutchison Toth

Theses and Dissertations--English

“Resonant Texts” draws from literary criticism, history, biography, media theory, and the history of technology to examine representations of sound and acts of listening in modern experimental fiction and drama. I argue that sound recording technology, invented in the late 19th century, equipped 20th century authors including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ralph Ellison, and Samuel Beckett with new resources for depicting human consciousness and experience. The works in my study feature what I call “close listening,” a technique initially made possible by the phonograph, which forced listeners to focus exclusively on what they heard without the presence of an accompanying …