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Teaching American Literature: a Journal of Theory and Practice Summer 2013 (6:2) 13
Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice Summer 2013 (6:2) Who Is 'Us' and Who Is 'Them' in Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis? Hossein Pirnajmuddin, University of Isfahan, I. R. Iran Abbasali Borhan, Shiraz University, I. R. Iran Abstract Don DeLillo, in his first post-9/11 novel Cosmopolis, addresses the question of (terrorist) Other as occupying an infiltrating position within the American society as the host community. He purports to make a diagnosis of the deficiencies inherent in the West's global capitalist system which make it "vulnerable" and exposed to the terrorists' violence. Underlying DeLillo's approach toward terrorism in this novel is the discourse of American liberal cosmopolitanism in terms of which American society is portrayed as "the land of the free;" a "hybrid" society constituted by "heterogeneous" ethnicities with different systems of values and beliefs. This dynamic multiculturalism, so is claimed, brings about clashes, gaps, and cracks within the American community as a whole and accordingly jeopardizes the solidity of American culture. What is taken for granted is validity of the governmental account of terrorism. Adopting an ambiguous position toward this discourse, DeLillo both endorses it and subverts, through parody, some of its affiliated precepts. In this article, first DeLillo's insular representation of a "Cosmopolitan" America as a "superpower" is explored and then his subliminal registration of an Orientalized other evoking 9/11 "us/them" paradigm is brought to light. Keywords: Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, American multiculturalism, us/them, Orientalism, 9/11. 1. Introduction The rippling impact of 9/11 "terrorist"1 events across American fiction has admittedly been far and wide. -
The Thought of Literature: Notes to Contemporary Fictions
The Thought of Literature Notes to contemporary fictions Jason Childs A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Technology Sydney, February 2018. Certificate of original authorship I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. This research is supported by an Austalian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Signature of Candidate: Production Note: Signature removed prior to publication. February 20, 2018 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to Robyn Ferrell for taking over my supervision at a late stage in my candidature. Her feedback on my ideas and drafts, always generous and incisive, was invaluable in completing this work. Without Berndt Sellheim’s encouragement, I would not have begun this project; without his support, I would not have finished it. I am blessed to call him my friend. Martin Harrison was an important mentor for several years prior to starting this work and my supervisor during its defining early stages. Fellow students of Martin's will understand when I say that, despite his untimely death in 2014, there is not a sentence here that wasn’t written in conversation with him. -
Nikolina G. Tomić Milica S. Stanković the Concept of Time in Don Delillo’S Point Omega NIKOLINA G
13 University of Belgrade Nikolina G. Tomić Milica S. Stanković The Concept of Time in Don DeLillo’s Point Omega NIKOLINA G. TOMIĆ / 202 MILICA S. STANKOVIĆ The Concept of Time in Don DeLillo’s Point Omega Temporality is one of the key aspects that contribute to the reshaping of the narrative tendencies of literary modernism, thus leading to the emergence of new narrative strategies associated with postmodern literature. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize its representation in postmodern literature and theory, focusing on one of the notable works that illustrate this phenomenon. Infuenced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s theory of the fnal aim of evolution, defned as the omega point, Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name explores, in Peter Boxall’s words, the formal balance between cinematic time, urban time, and desert time. In that sense, the paper is particularly concerned with the plurality of time, prevalent in literary postmodernism. In order to provide insight into this matter, it is also essential to shed light on how it is represented in the works of Jorge Luis Borges, who exerted signifcant infuence on DeLillo’s Omega Point depiction of the concept of time in the contemporary world. KEYWORDS DeLillo, Point Omega, time, postmodernism, Borges The Concept of Time in Don DeLillo’s Time in Don DeLillo’s of The Concept NIKOLINA G. TOMIĆ, MILICA S. STANKOVIĆ S. STANKOVIĆ MILICA TOMIĆ, G. NIKOLINA 1. INTRODUCTION / 203 The concept of time, no matter how prominent in contemporary literature, has rarely been so thoroughly explored as in Point Omega, a thought-provoking novel written by one of the most infuential authors of the 20th and 21st century, Don DeLillo. -
Don Delillo and 9/11: a Question of Response
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English English, Department of 5-2010 Don DeLillo and 9/11: A Question of Response Michael Jamieson University of Nebraska at Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Jamieson, Michael, "Don DeLillo and 9/11: A Question of Response" (2010). Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English. 28. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss/28 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. DON DELILLO AND 9/11: A QUESTION OF RESPONSE by Michael A. Jamieson A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts Major: English Under the Supervision of Professor Marco Abel Lincoln, Nebraska May, 2010 DON DELILLO AND 9/11: A QUESTION OF RESPONSE Michael Jamieson, M.A. University of Nebraska, 2010 Advisor: Marco Abel In the wake of the attacks of September 11th, many artists struggled with how to respond to the horror. In literature, Don DeLillo was one of the first authors to pose a significant, fictionalized investigation of the day. In this thesis, Michael Jamieson argues that DeLillo’s post-9/11 work constitutes a new form of response to the tragedy. -
Postwar Media Manifestations and Don Delillo Joshua Adam Boldt Eastern Kentucky University
Eastern Kentucky University Encompass Online Theses and Dissertations Student Scholarship 2011 Postwar Media Manifestations and Don DeLillo Joshua Adam Boldt Eastern Kentucky University Follow this and additional works at: https://encompass.eku.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons, and the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Boldt, Joshua Adam, "Postwar Media Manifestations and Don DeLillo" (2011). Online Theses and Dissertations. 09. https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/09 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Encompass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Online Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Encompass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Postwar Media Manifestations and Don DeLillo By Joshua Boldt Master of Arts Eastern Kentucky University Richmond, Kentucky 2011 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Eastern Kentucky University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May, 2011 Copyright © Joshua Boldt 2011 All rights reserved ii Table of Contents Introduction: The Hyperreal, Hypercommodified American Identity 1 Chapter One: Postwar Advertising, Mass Consumption, and the 14 Construction of the Consumer Identity Chapter Two: News Media and American Complicity 34 Chapter Three: The Art of the Copy: Mechanical Reproductions and 50 Media Simulations Works Cited 68 iii Introduction: The Hyperreal, Hypercommodified American Identity This study examines the relationship between American media, advertising, and the construction of a postwar American identity. American media manifests itself in several different forms, all of which impact the consciousness of the American people, and the postwar rise to power of the advertising industry helped to mold identity in ways that are often not even recognized. -
'Little Terrors'
Don DeLillo’s Promiscuous Fictions: The Adulterous Triangle of Sex, Space, and Language Diana Marie Jenkins A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of English University of NSW, December 2005 This thesis is dedicated to the loving memory of a wonderful grandfather, and a beautiful niece. I wish they were here to see me finish what both saw me start. Contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 2 Chapter One 26 The Space of the Hotel/Motel Room Chapter Two 81 Described Space and Sexual Transgression Chapter Three 124 The Reciprocal Space of the Journey and the Image Chapter Four 171 The Space of the Secret Conclusion 232 Reference List 238 Abstract This thesis takes up J. G. Ballard’s contention, that ‘the act of intercourse is now always a model for something else,’ to show that Don DeLillo uses a particular sexual, cultural economy of adultery, understood in its many loaded cultural and literary contexts, as a model for semantic reproduction. I contend that DeLillo’s fiction evinces a promiscuous model of language that structurally reflects the myth of the adulterous triangle. The thesis makes a significant intervention into DeLillo scholarship by challenging Paul Maltby’s suggestion that DeLillo’s linguistic model is Romantic and pure. My analysis of the narrative operations of adultery in his work reveals the alternative promiscuous model. I discuss ten DeLillo novels and one play – Americana, Players, The Names, White Noise, Libra, Mao II, Underworld, the play Valparaiso, The Body Artist, Cosmopolis, and the pseudonymous Amazons – that feature adultery narratives. -
Historicizing the Iraq War in Don Delillo's Point Omega
Journal of American Studies, (), , – © Cambridge University Press . This is an Open Access article, distributed unde r the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ . 1 ), w h ic h p er m i t s u n re s t r ic t e d r e -u se , d is t r i/b u ti o n , and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:./S First published online August “Too many goddamn echoes”: Historicizing the Iraq War in Don DeLillo’s Point Omega MARTIN PAUL EVE This piece provides a detailed engagement with Don DeLillo’s depiction of the Iraq War in his latest novel, Point Omega. Framed through both formal aesthetic signposting of the interrelations between modernist and postmodernist practice and also through explicit thematic comparison between the conflicts, I trace DeLillo’s treatment of Iraq in Point Omega back to his earlier writing on the Cold War in Underworld and focus upon the ways in which this comparative historical metaphor can be read with particular emphasis upon its implications for the nation-state. Wherever one’s political sensibilities lie in relation to the Iraq War there is a different mode of politics with which it seems imperative that all who value art must continue to engage: the politics of representation. Indeed, the act of representing war and individual, lived, real horror is intensely problematic and raises ethical issues that are well framed in Theodor Adorno’s widely known remark that “the aesthetic principle of stylization .. -
Transatlantica, 1 | 2002 Don Delillo : Une Bibliographie Sélective 2
Transatlantica Revue d’études américaines. American Studies Journal 1 | 2002 Jeune République Don DeLillo : une bibliographie sélective Aaron Smith Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/523 DOI : 10.4000/transatlantica.523 ISSN : 1765-2766 Éditeur AFEA Référence électronique Aaron Smith, « Don DeLillo : une bibliographie sélective », Transatlantica [En ligne], 1 | 2002, mis en ligne le 23 mars 2006, consulté le 29 avril 2021. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/ 523 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.523 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 29 avril 2021. Transatlantica – Revue d'études américaines est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. Don DeLillo : une bibliographie sélective 1 Don DeLillo : une bibliographie sélective Aaron Smith Oeuvres de Don DeLilloRomans 1 Americana. 1971. London : Penguin, 1990. 2 End Zone. 1972. New York : Penguin, 1986. 3 Great Jones Street. 1973. New York : Penguin, 1994. 4 Ratner’s Star. 1976. London : Vintage, 1991. 5 Players. 1977. London : Vintage, 1991. 6 Running Dog. 1978. London : Picador, 1992. 7 The Names. 1982. New York : Vintage, 1989. 8 White Noise. 1984. London : Picador, 1985. 9 Libra. 1988. London : Penguin, 1989. 10 Mao II. 1991. London : Vintage, 1992. 11 Underworld. 1997. New York : Scribner, 1997. 12 The Body Artist. 2001. New York : Picador, 2001. 13 Cosmopolis. New York : Scribner, 2003 (à paraître) Théâtre 14 The Engineer of Moonlight. Cornell Review 1 (1979) : 21‑47. 15 The Day Room. 1986. New York : Penguin, 1989. 16 The Rapture of the Athlete Assumed into Heaven. -
Review: Paul Giaimo, Appreciating Don Delillo
Paul Giaimo, Appreciating Don DeLillo, Praeger, Santa Barbara, 2011; pp.188; RRP US$44.95 hardback. Paul Giaimo’s Appreciating Don DeLillo: The Moral Force of a Writer’s Work is a study of morality and religion in Don DeLillo’s oeuvre of fiction. Giaimo continues Amy Hungerford and John Paul Russo’s insights into the trope of religion, but vitally fleshes it out into a book-length examination of DeLillo’s Jesuit influences. As Giaimo states in the preface, his purpose centres on the ‘underlying moral lessons of DeLillo’s work’ (p.v). Such an investigation into the novelist’s religious roots and consequential literary influences is well overdue in DeLillo scholarship. With the book divided into seven chapters, I now give attention to each turn. In Chapter 1, ‘Don DeLillo and the Novel – Neither Modern nor Postmodern’, Giaimo makes the case that ‘DeLillo’s tendency is to show some elements of mimetic realism as well as those features of modernism and postmodernism’ (p.1). He begins by rightly noting that the defining trend of DeLillo criticism is to align his works with postmodernism, and he deviates from this through a discussion of the unflattering presentation of postmodern theorists in DeLillo’s works. He states clearly that ‘[n]either modernism nor postmodernism really applies as a label for DeLillo’s work’ (p.16), and shows how DeLillo’s characters’ self- destruction and lack of morality are detrimental to their lives, although hope continues as a ‘potent moral force’ (p.21). Chapter 2 delves into fascinating examples of morality presented in DeLillo’s early novels, Americana, Great Jones Street, Ratner’s Star, Running Dog, and Players. -
“The Contrails Streaked Cleanly in the High Sky”
“The Contrails Streaked Cleanly in the High Sky” An Ecocritical Reading of Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Underworld By Thomas Gårder Brendefur Master’s Thesis University of Bergen Department of Foreign Languages November 2012 Samandrag Masteroppgåva tek for seg romanane White Noise (1985) og Underworld (1997) av den amerikanske forfattaren Don DeLillo (1936-), og gjev ein kort diskusjon av den siste romanen hans Point Omega (2010) i konklusjonskappittelet. Romanane er døme på den post-moderne litteraturen i USA, og gjev eit utvald bilete av den amerikanske tilstanden i den andre halvdelen av førre hundreåret. Tema som er typiske for forfattaren er korleis individet vert påverka av sosiale og politiske krefter, og korleis instansar som media, populærkultur og kapitalisme påverkar språk, handling og ei generell oppleving av verda. Oppgåva argumenterer for at litteratur kan gje eit innblikk i korleis haldninga vår til miljøspørsmål og natur kan verte styrt og endra av desse sosial-politiske kreftene, og at opplevinga av kva som er «naturleg» og kva som er «kulturelt» vert problematisert av desse kreftene. Meir konkret, tek det første kapittelet for seg den litterære representasjonen av ein miljøkatastrofe i romanen White Noise. Drøftinga tek for seg korleis katastrofen vert opplevd, snakka om, og nærmast spelt ut av karakterane i romanen, mykje basert på forventningar og førestillingar skapa av ein overmett media-verkelegheit. I tillegg ser kapittelet på korleis gøymde trugslar mot miljøet vert hinta til i teksten. Det andre kapittelet drøftar korleis romanen Underworld gjev eit tilbakeblikk på den siste halvdelen av det tjugande hundreåret, med fokus på utviklinga av eit seinkapitalistisk samfunn prega av den kalde krigen og krigsretorikk, reklame og konsumpsjon, avfall og avfallshandtering, atomkraft og forureining. -
An Examination of Conspiracy and Terror in the Works of Don Delillo
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Theses Department of English Spring 5-7-2011 For the Future: An Examination of Conspiracy and Terror in the Works of Don Delillo Ashleigh Whelan Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Whelan, Ashleigh, "For the Future: An Examination of Conspiracy and Terror in the Works of Don Delillo." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses/104 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FOR THE FUTURE: AN EXAMINATION OF CONSPIRACY AND TERROR IN THE WORKS OF DON DELILLO by ASHLEIGH WHELAN Under the Direction of Dr. Christopher Kocela ABSTRACT This thesis is divided into two chapters, the first being an examination of conspiracy and paranoia in Libra, while the second focuses on the relationship between art and terror in Mao II, “In the Ruins of the Future,” Falling Man, and Point Omega. The study traces how DeLillo’s works have evolved over the years, focusing on the creation of counternarratives. Readers are given a glimpse of American culture and shown the power of narrative, ultimately shedding light on the future of our collective consciousness. INDEX -
Beyond Grief and Nothing: a Reading of Don Delillo, by Joseph Dewey
Joseph Dewey. Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006. 172p. Randy Laist University of Connecticut Don DeLillo has been relatively quiet in the last ten years. Since the publication of the celebrated tome Underworld in 1997, his output has included two uncharacter- istically diminutive novels and two rarely discussed (although very excellent) plays. When God withdraws, the priests come out, and so since the turn of the millennium, the number of full-length studies devoted to DeLillo has swelled from two to seven, with 2006 being the first year to see two such publications. The general trend in 21st-century DeLillo criticism has been to try to rescue DeLillo from the postmodern theorists who busily laid claim to him in hundreds of scholarly journal articles from the 1980s and 1990s. Recent books by Cowart (2003) and Kavadlo (2004) have aspired to return DeLillo to the people by emphasizing his underlying humanism, his predilection for mysticism, and his rich delight in the communal satisfactions of language and narrative. Dewey’s Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo continues this push by articulating the thesis that DeLillo’s career represents a development through cynicism and postmodern quietism toward a spiritual vision of the resurrection and reclamation of “the human soul itself” (148). The very idea of a meta-narrative adumbrating DeLillo’s evolution is unique to Dewey’s book. Other DeLillo studies tend to take as their starting point DeLillo’s stylistic consistency over his 35-year career, or to attribute any development in his outlook to historical shifts in the social climate of the America he has been writing in and about.