Difficult Work: the Politics of Counter-Professionalism in Post
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Difficultork: W The Politics Of Counter-Professionalism In Post-1945 Transnational American Fiction Kalyan Nadiminti University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the American Literature Commons, Asian American Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Nadiminti, Kalyan, "Difficultork: W The Politics Of Counter-Professionalism In Post-1945 Transnational American Fiction" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2495. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2495 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2495 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Difficultork: W The Politics Of Counter-Professionalism In Post-1945 Transnational American Fiction Abstract This dissertation reads American and Asian American fictions that instigate eelingsf of discontent about American work. While literary scholars of white-collar work have examined anti-work sentiment as an unquestionably American phenomenon, they have yet to acknowledge the continuing global repercussions of the postwar American economy. I read transnational figures of work that query the ideology of American professionalism by mixing anti-work and anti-imperial feeling into the performance of white-collar work. Drawing from four forms of the novel that address a crisis of American domesticity—the postwar crime novel, the middlebrow travel novel, the multi-ethnic bildungsroman, and the post-9/11 finance novel—the dissertation reads low-grade, ambient affects, like anxiety or hesitation, to find a sideways reappraisal of a national work ethic. Minor feeling opens a new tendency in transnational American writing that I theorize as “counter-professionalism,” where the prefix counter“ ” produces multiple forms of resistance: Bartlebyian refusal, dilettantism, strategic negotiation, and reluctant conscription. This dissertation brings together sociological discourses of work, affect theory, and transnational American literature to hypothesize the rise of American Anglophone culture. The postwar crime novels of Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith provide a genealogical origin for the decline of the welfare state through the deviant work of the hard-boiled detective or the international conman. Meanwhile, rejecting American triumphalism for dilettantism and espiocracy, the internationalism of Richard Yates and Paul Bowles enters downward states of depression and acedia that disrupt the suburban novel. The turn to internationalism necessitates a consideration of the centripetal movement of Cold War immigration. The contemporary novels of Susan Choi and Jhumpa Lahiri reappraise the ignored case of postwar Asian American knowledge workers, where political feelings of evasion and willfulness unsettle the sociological trope of the model minority. The case of the foreign student reveals that the immigrant body is shunted into racialized forms of both manual and reproductive labor under the pretext of knowledge work. Finally, post-9/11 finance novels of Pakistani writers Mohsin Hamid and H.M Naqvi harken back to postwar criminality by confronting the accusation of terroristic subjectivity through feelings of regret, precipitating a comprehensive exit from American work. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group English First Advisor Josephine N. Park Keywords Affect Studies, Labor and Work, Multi-Ethnic American Literature, Professionalism, Transnationalism, Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature Subject Categories American Literature | Asian American Studies | Ethnic Studies | Literature in English, North America This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2495 for my parents, Lakshmi Ramakrishna Srinivas and Srinivas Koundinya Nadiminti ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Like all intellectual projects, this dissertation emerges out of diverse conversations and field formations spanning many years. I would like to thank my advisor Josephine Park who has been the most brilliant and encouraging of mentors. Jo has worked with me tirelessly to shape the project from its inception and has provided invaluable course corrections. Among other crucial insights, her nudge towards the figure of the foreign student expanded the project’s frame in wonderfully resonant ways and was the beginning of an important intellectual turn. Jed Esty has been an influential and inspirational mentor, envisaging theoretical interventions in the most surprising places. He has taught me to think with a rigorous, historical eye for formal detail, while also pushing me to challenge assumptions about political certainties. Heather Love and Paul Saint-Amour have read my work with fine-tuned attention and have offered sage advice in difficult times with great generosity. It has been a real pleasure and privilege putting this project together with such a talented group of thinkers, all of whom have contributed to my political, intellectual, and ethical development as a scholar. John Marx, Kavita Daiya, and Jim English have offered their thoughts and advice at pivotal points. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to Justus Nieland, Scott Juengel, Scott Michaelsen, Judith Scott, and Patrick O’Donnell at Michigan State University for their support in the early stages of my graduate career. I owe just as much to five terrific scholars in India: Shefali Balsari-Shah, Niti Sampat-Patel, Syed Sayeed, Rajiv C. Krishnan, and Alok Bhalla. My colleagues Jacqueline Burek, Kelly Rich, and Cliff Mak have been a fount of advice and support through my time at Penn, reading and commenting on works-in-progress with exemplary rigor. Kelly and I also organized the conference “Locating Post-45” together, which was just great fun. Many other colleagues have been influential interlocutors over the years: Erin Beard, Monika Bhagat-Kennedy, Marina Bilbija, Daniel Dooghan, Melissa McCoul, Ishani Dasgupta, Caroline Henze- Gongola, Sucheta Kanjilal, Chris Jimenez, Sierra Lomuto, Dianne Mitchell, Don James McLaughlin, Pooja Nayak, Hugh O’Connell, Laura Soderberg, Kaushik Ramu, Ana Schwartz, Ammel Sharon, Ji Yun Sul, Christine Woody, Omari Weekes, Sunny Yang, and Lea Yoon. Many thanks to all the participants for the ACLA Panel “Cosmopolitan Deviations” who offered such thorough considerations of the bad transnationalism from different disciplinary directions. Your work will continue to raise important questions for me as this dissertation evolves towards a book manuscript. I would also like to thank Laura Finch and John McGlothlin III for including me in their thoughtful ACLA panel “Revisiting the Archive: Finance and Contemporary Literature” which provided an important intervention as I finished my last chapter. Similarly, the students from my class on “Asian American Professionals” were the most engaging group who provided a wonderful platform to showcase and hone my approach to Asian American and global Anglophone culture. In its final stages, this dissertation was completed with support from a Penn School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship. iii Finally, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional support. My parents, Lakshmi Ramakrishna Srinivas and Srinivas Koundinya Nadiminti, have always encouraged me to follow the road less travelled. My close friend Partho Chakrabartty and my precocious young cousin Lavanya Shukla have read my material with a curiosity and enthusiasm that has always been clarifying. My canine best friend Siena Wade has provided me with her unwavering love through countless revisions. And my partner Avni Majithia-Sejpal offers sharp conceptual critiques and energetic discussions that sustain me every single day. iv ABSTRACT DIFFICULT WORK: THE POLITICS OF COUNTER-PROFESSIONALISM IN POST- 1945 TRANSNATIONAL AMERICAN FICTION Kalyan Nadiminti Josephine N. Park This dissertation reads American and Asian American fictions that instigate feelings of discontent about American work. While literary scholars of white-collar work have examined anti-work sentiment as an unquestionably American phenomenon, they have yet to acknowledge the continuing global repercussions of the postwar American economy. I read transnational figures of work that query the ideology of American professionalism by mixing anti-work and anti-imperial feeling into the performance of white-collar work. Drawing from four forms of the novel that address a crisis of American domesticity—the postwar crime novel, the middlebrow travel novel, the multi- ethnic bildungsroman, and the post-9/11 finance novel—the dissertation reads low-grade, ambient affects, like anxiety or hesitation, to find a sideways reappraisal of a national work ethic. Minor feeling opens a new tendency in transnational American writing that I theorize as “counter-professionalism,” where the prefix “counter” produces multiple forms of resistance: Bartlebyian refusal, dilettantism, strategic negotiation, and reluctant conscription. This dissertation brings together sociological discourses of work, affect theory, and transnational American literature to hypothesize the rise of American Anglophone culture. The postwar crime novels of Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith provide a genealogical origin for the decline of the welfare state through the deviant