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Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Subtexts of Subversion: Counter-Hegemonic Discourses in Contemporary Fiction under Neoliberalism Codice, Martina Award date: 2020 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 Subtexts of Subversion: Counter-Hegemonic Discourses in Contemporary Fiction under Neoliberalism Martina Codicè Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Modern Languages Bangor University, School of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics July 2020 ABSTRACT The past forty years have witnessed the progressive shift of neoliberalism from economic and political doctrine to ontological imperative (Huehls and Greenwald Smith, 2017). So pervasively has neoliberal ideology bled into previously non-economic areas of social life that it is now perceived as a natural, inevitable and unquestionable brand of Gramscian ‘common sense’. This inescapability of the neoliberal hegemony has led critics such as Slavoj Žižek and Fredric Jameson to affirm that it is now easier to imagine the end of the world than the breakdown of late capitalism. Through an analysis of literary representations of what has effectively been the neoliberalisation of work, space and leisure, this thesis explores the ways in which contemporary literature challenges the indisputability of the neoliberal discourse and rejects the unimaginability of any alternative to the status quo. In so doing, this thesis reasserts the committed character of contemporary literature and its role in exposing the socially constructed nature of the neoliberal consensus. By means of a comparative analysis of novels published from the 1980s to the 2010s in Britain, the United States and Italy, this work brings into dialogue the literary traditions of the more prototypically neoliberal British and American economies with that of a country where the process of neoliberalisation was more recent and arguably only half-hearted. In order to decode the authors’ portrayal of the existential condition under neoliberalism, this thesis avails itself of the conceptual framework of ‘liminality’ in its recent applications to advanced, industrialised societies (Turner, 1974; Szakolczai, 2014; Thomassen, 2014). This research recognises in liminality a recurring feature of contemporary society and it interprets it as both symptomatic of an increasing precarisation of existence and, by virtue of its associations with transitional and transformational states that render it a fertile terrain for the emergence of counter-hegemonic discourses, as an instrument of systemic critique. 2 DECLARATION Yr wyf drwy hyn yn datgan mai canlyniad fy ymchwil fy hun yw’r thesis hwn, ac eithrio lle nodir yn wahanol. Caiff ffynonellau eraill eu cydnabod gan droednodiadau yn rhoi cyfeiriadau eglur. Nid yw sylwedd y gwaith hwn wedi cael ei dderbyn o’r blaen ar gyfer unrhyw radd, ac nid yw’n cael ei gyflwyno ar yr un pryd mewn ymgeisiaeth am unrhyw radd oni bai ei fod, fel y cytunwyd gan y Brifysgol, am gymwysterau deuol cymeradwy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hereby declare that this thesis is the results of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. All other sources are acknowledged by bibliographic references. This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree unless, as agreed by the University, for approved dual awards. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 7 1. NEOLIBERAL “COMMON SENSE”: TERMS AND SCOPE OF THE PROJECT ....................................................... 7 2. SURVEYING THE FIELD: REALISMS, REPRESENTATION AND RESISTANCE IN NEOLIBERAL FICTION ........... 15 3. ORIGINALITY, RELEVANCE AND CONTRIBUTION OF THE PROJECT ............................................................ 20 4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................... 22 5. LAYOUT OF THE THESIS AND MAIN FINDINGS ........................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER ONE .................................................................................................................................................. 30 ‘THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN’: LIMINAL WORKERS BETWEEN PRECARITY AND POSSIBILITY ...................................................................................................................................................... 30 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 30 2. WORKING IN PERMANENT LIMINALITY ..................................................................................................... 38 2.1 Post-industrial alienation: meaninglessness and boredom ........................................................... 41 2.2 Consumed by work: liminality and illness ..................................................................................... 53 3. ‘AS SUBSTANTIAL AS MEETINGS ON A BUS’: ISOLATION AND THE IMAGINED COMMUNITIES OF THE WORkPLACE ....................................................................................................................................................... 56 4. ‘A WORLD WITHOUT RULES’: SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE AND THE NEW DISCIPLINE ......................................... 68 4.1 ‘Does fear make one a more loyal employee?’: the violence of the panopticon ........................... 80 5. ‘F**K THE ECONOMY, THE WORLD IS OURS!’: PRACTICES OF RESISTANCE AND THE END OF WORk ......... 85 5.1 Practices of resistance ................................................................................................................... 86 5.2 The end of work .............................................................................................................................. 98 6. CONCLUSION: ‘MAYBE WE CAN JUMP OFF THE TRAIN’? ......................................................................... 103 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................................... 108 ‘SOUS LES PAVÉS, LA PLAGE!’: THE SUBVERSION AND REAPPROPRIATION OF LIMINAL LANDSCAPES ................................................................................................................................................... 108 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 108 2. PLACELESSNESS, HYPERREALITY AND THE SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY ................................................ 114 3. LIMINAL IDENTITIES: NON-CONFORMITY, (IN)VISIBILITY AND SURVEILLANCE ...................................... 129 4. RESTORING AN ERASED HISTORY ........................................................................................................... 149 5. REAPPROPRIATING SPACE: FROM HOMELESSNESS TO REVOLUTION ....................................................... 158 6. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 173 CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................................................... 175 ‘A CRAVING FOR TERRIBLE THINGS’: DEVIANCE AND LIMINALITY AS ‘SECOND LIFE’ IN CONTEMPORARY LEISURE ........................................................................................................................ 175 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 175 2. SETTING THE CONTEXT: A DEPRIVATION OF MEANING ........................................................................... 179 4 3. PLAYING AT THE EDGE: THE SEARCH FOR THE EXTREME AND THE THRILL OF THE IN-BETWEEN ............ 186 4. THE SPECTACLE OF VIOLENCE: PUBLIC ENJOYMENT OF PRIVATE TRAGEDY AND THE MEDIATISATION OF THE VIOLENT EVENT ......................................................................................................................................... 200 5. THE ROUTINISATION OF THE EXTREME AND THE TRIVIALISATION OF DEATH AS THE ULTIMATE TRANSGRESSION ............................................................................................................................................... 212 6. CARNIVALESQUE SUBVERSION

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