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Curation, Provisional Histories, and Novels Mario THE PLOT AND THE ARCHIVE: CURATION, PROVISIONAL HISTORIES, AND NOVELS MARIO A. D’AGOSTINO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO October 2019 © MARIO A. D’AGOSTINO, 2019 ABSTRACT The Plot and the Archive applies museum studies and curatorial techniques to post-1960s novels dealing with history and outlines the importance of a figure called “the character-as- curator” within such spaces. This figure exemplifies different strategies employed to interrogate, analyze and reconcile what presents itself as a deeply problematic historical record. In so doing, this novelistic figure performs what postmodernity has tasked of scholarship as such, and curation signifies capaciously the critical techniques of identification, separation, re-arrangement and re-collection which enable the possibility of discovery and new understanding. It is no longer a worthwhile endeavor simply to characterize history as a falsehood, disregarding its offerings as corrupt, misleading, or potentially dangerous. Instead, this dissertation explores how characters create archives and curate artifacts as strategies for reconciling the past. Each chapter in The Plot and the Archive deals with specific historical and archival challenges and uses museum studies as a lens to account for unempirical sources in historical records (e.g., memory and imagination). Chapter one situates readers in the historical and museological contexts this dissertation responds to and draws a relationship between novels and museum studies. Chapter two examines problems with relying on empirical modes for constructing histories in Don DeLillo’s Libra. Chapter three moves away from overarching master narratives to examine memory and familial archives in Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Chapter four focuses on Daphne Marlatt’s Ana Historic to explore how curation—coupled with imagination and memory—can provide authors and readers a language for locating women’s excluded histories. By relying on literary and curatorial techniques (including ekphrasis, synecdoche, show-and-tell, and displayed archeology), this dissertation argues that characters-as-curators encourage readers to question known historical records, using ii textually constructed exhibition spaces as sites for these reexaminations. The Plot and the Archive augments the character-as-curator’s adaptability by extending museum studies to literary studies, arguing for their importance in reading literature. iii DEDICATION For Dad Who wouldn’t have read a single word of this and who wouldn’t have had to. My only regret is that you weren’t here to see this project to its completion. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to extend a special thank you to my committee: Arthur Redding, Thomas Loebel, and Terry Goldie. I grew as a thinker and writer because of this committee and will always be grateful for the counsel they provided me throughout this process. Thank you so, so much. I would like to furthermore thank Terry Goldie. While completing my second year of doctoral studies at York University a colleague of mine said in passing that “they just don’t come like Terry anymore. They truly broke the mold with him as a scholar.” This journey proved that statement correct, and I will forever be grateful for your patience, care, and friendship. Thank you. To my mother and father, who sacrificed so much to put me in a position to succeed and who always believed in me. Thank you. For everything. To Cramdon’s Tap and Eatery, the place that provided financial assurance and a much- needed pint at precisely the right moment. “Scoop of vanilla, scoop of chocolate” indeed, friends. Finally, to my biggest advocate, my support system, and the person I am so grateful to be able to call my wife: Thank you for pushing me in my darkest moments, Janine, and for always reminding me that this could be accomplished. “When I needed you the most, you gave me your very best.” v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................ii Dedication ......................................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ...........................................................................................................................vi List of Figures ...............................................................................................................................vii Chapter One: Introduction: Who is the Character-as-Curator?.......................................................1 Histories, Historian Subjectivity, and How Historians Handle Artifacts............................9 Curators, Curation, and the History of Curatorial Studies.................................................20 Defining the Character-as-Curator within the Contemporary Novel.................................31 Chapter Breakdown...........................................................................................................36 Chapter Two: “I wanna die just like JFK / I wanna die in the USA:” Curating ‘Official’ Histories in Don DeLillo’s Libra...................................................................................................45 Historical Re-Writings and Historiographic Metafiction..................................................52 Open-Ended Interpretations and Levels of Curation in Libra...........................................65 Ekphrasis and the Museological Qualities of DeLillo’s Libra..........................................77 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................85 Chapter Three: “Ways to blaze your brain and train ya:” Curating Memory, Loss, and Familial History in Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao....................................89 Curating Memory and Forgotten Histories Through Lieux de Mémoire...........................95 Wunderkammern, Synecdoche, and Curating Forgotten Histories..................................108 Curation Matters: Yunior’s Reliability, Footnotes, and Show-and-Tell..........................122 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................133 Chapter Four: “History will have to find a different face:” Ana Historic and Curating Women’s Histories in Early Vancouver......................................................................................138 Women’s Histories, Affective, and Imaginative Re-covery Work..................................146 Anecdotal Collections and Women’s History Writing....................................................156 Displayed Archaeology and Representing the Museum on the Page..............................168 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................180 Chapter Five: Conclusion: “. curiosity killed the Kerouac cat/ sometimes truth is stranger than fiction:” Implications of The Plot and the Archive..............................................................184 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................199 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. “OBEY Stencil with Text”............................................................................................2 Figure 1.2. “Arab Woman (Red)” ...................................................................................................3 Figure 3.1. Wunderkammer, appearing in Dell'Historia Natvrale di Ferrante Imperato............110 Figure 3.2. Final panel in Watchmen #12 ...................................................................................135 Figure 5.1. Reproduction of a crematorium in Maus II...............................................................196 vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Who is the Character-as-Curator? ‘I guess it makes sense when you think about it,’ I said, ‘although I didn’t know about the mythological part. It seems somehow that I remember hearing it meant the Glen of Weeping.’ ‘That was Macauley,’ she said, ‘the historian. He just made it up after the event…He was one of those people who went through history picking and choosing and embellishing.’ She paused. ‘Still, I guess when you look at it now, one meaning can be true and the other can be accurate.’ – Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief 97 The study of the novel as a genre is distinguished by peculiar difficulties. This is due to the unique nature of the object itself: the novel is as yet uncompleted. The forces that define it as a genre are at work before our very eyes: the birth and development of the novel as a genre takes place in the full light of the historical day. The generic skeleton of the novel is still far from having hardened, and we cannot foresee all its plastic possibilities. – Mikhail Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel: Towards a Methodology for the Study of the Novel” 3 The earliest renderings in my mind of the character-as-curator began in 2011 when I attended the “Composing Ourselves” graduate student conference at the University
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