DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/MQKX-WN74

Defense Date

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

English

First Advisor

Jennifer Rhee

Second Advisor

David Golumbia

Third Advisor

Elizabeth Canfield

Abstract

This thesis examines the utility of the novels, short stories, critical writing, and generically indistinct work of Alain Robbe-Grillet, J.G. Ballard, and Thomas Ligotti in developing a critique of the contemporary manifestations of liberal humanist social, economic, and political subjectivities. To this end, the concurrence of formal fragmentation and sublime aesthetics in early Gothic fiction models the manner in which narrative structures can appropriate structural tropes of dominant institutions, critically reflecting ideological fracture. Read according to the assemblative approach outlined by Deleuze and Guattari, these authors serve as a productive and incisive response to the hegemony of capitalist territorialization with ontologically provocative critique.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

5-11-2016

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