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Spectral Substances of Democracy: Agency, Affect, and Power in American Romance

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Spectral Substances of Democracy: Agency, Affect, and Power in American Romance SPECTRAL SUBSTANCES OF DEMOCRACY: AGENCY, AFFECT, AND POWER IN AMERICAN ROMANCE Kwangtaek Han A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2013 Approved by: Eliza Richards Jane Thrailkill Timothy Marr Matthew Taylor John McGowan ©2013 Kwangtaek Han ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT KWANGTAEK HAN: Spectral Substances of Democracy: Agency, Affect, and Power in American Romance (Under the direction of Eliza Richards) Focusing on texts by Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, my dissertation traces the historical conditions that shaped their heterodox political ontologies and the challenge these ontologies posed to what their contemporaries considered the essential fulcrums of American democracy: autonomous agency, solidifying affect, and consensual power. These canonical authors capture the paradox that such principles are liable to impersonal, disruptive, and autocratic operations that preclude the actualization of American democracy. This liability, they reveal, is hardly perceived as threatening to American democracy since it is a necessary condition for sustaining a fantastical belief in American democracy as a consensual society of self-governing individuals sympathizing with others for the public good. The romancers dramatize the unrecognized, antidemocratic workings of agency, affect, and power in their works, written during the critical periods of nation-building (Brown), Jacksonian Democracy (Poe), the rise of abolitionist and feminist movements (Hawthorne), and the Secession crisis leading to the Civil War (Melville). Their romances divulge the profound paradox that personal autonomy, affective solidarity, and popular sovereignty are spectral substances—conceptually present yet empirically absent—that uphold the politico-ontological ground of American identity. These iii oxymoronic foundations of American existence, I argue, not only account for the enduring social desire and energy of American democracy, but also answer for its eventual impossibility. In the introduction, I define the three key concepts of my project—democracy, ontology, and substance in antebellum contexts. Chapter I investigates how Brown in Wieland demystifies the two competing ideologies of American democracy: the Republican-Democratic call for individual self-government and the Federalist request for national unity. Chapter II explores Poe’s critique of the dominant democratic logic of political and cultural identification and the vain pursuit of singular individuality. Chapter III examines Hawthorne’s inquiry into morbid, immoral sympathies in The Scarlet Letter, which reject the notion of sympathy for democratic social reforms. Chapter IV considers Melville’s insight into the paradox of popular sovereignty in Moby-Dick by focusing on the quarter-deck scene, in which Ahab garners the crew’s voluntary, unanimous consent to transform the commercial whaler Pequod into an instrument of his personal vengeance. iv For Jina v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Without many brilliant scholars and generous advisors I have had at UNC-Chapel Hill, this work would never have come to fruition. My first thanks go to Eliza Richards, whose intellectual rigor, unwavering support, and enormous patience have guided me through every turn of this project. She recognized the value of my claims and energized me with her unflagging intellectual enthusiasm, astute insights, and meticulous comments. I am honored and lucky to have benefited from her sharp critical eye, indefatigable inquiry, and high expectations as much as I have from her scholarship. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to my committee members: to Jane Thrailkill, a dynamic and inspirational model of intellectual rigor, for her seminars which set me on the path toward American literature, culture, and philosophy; to Timothy Marr, a true exponent of the Melvillean vision and life and another model of infectious intellectual enthusiasm, whose gracious and benevolent guidance led me to Melville’s leviathans and krakens; to John McGowan, whose own work and balanced insights into philosophy and politics sharpened my arguments and played a crucial role in shaping the theoretical frameworks I bring to literature; and to Matthew Taylor, whose incisive comments and penetrating questions helped me hone my thinking and writing on the intricate questions of ontology and literature. I am also indebted to other marvelous UNC faculty members, who contributed to my development as a scholar along the way: I am grateful to Gregory Flaxman for vi opening my eyes to the abyss of Freud, Lacan and Deleuze; to Philip Gura for transforming me from a reader to a collector of hundreds of early European and American books, magazines, and newspapers; to Eric Downing for helping me diving into Freud, Benjamin, Nietzsche, and Adorno; Lawrence Grossberg, Richard Cante, Christian Lundberg in the Communications Studies Department for introducing the field of Cultural Studies to me; John Kasson in the History Department for his brilliant teaching on American cultural history; Jay Garcia in the Department of American Studies for his seminar on Paul Gilroy and inviting me to the 2008 Paul Gilroy Conference. I also wish to express my thanks to other wonderful faculty members in my home department: especially to Beverly Taylor, James Thompson, Tyler Curtain, Daniel Anderson, Mary Floyd-Wilson, and Jennifer Ho, for their emotional and intellectual support. My thanks also go to Duke faculty members, Nancy Armstrong, Fredric Jameson, Michael Hart, Priscilla Wald, Cathy Davidson, who helped me nourish my intellectual spirit and contributed immeasurably to my project; I especially have endless gratitude and admiration for Nancy Armstrong who, an exemplary scholar in every respect, always took me as a scholar and taught me not to become “a shallow thinker,” and Cathy Davidson, who taught me about early American literature and generously provided a HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) scholarship for me. It was my privilege to be part of the UNC Writing Center for two years as a writing tutor. I was truly lucky to work with Kimberly Abels, Vicki Behrens, Ben Shields, Chris Cameron, Josh Davis, Julia Osman, Rania Chelala, and Margaret Swezey, who bridged the gap between friend and mentor. I would have to say that it is impossible to vii imagine my past seven years in Chapel Hill without my graduate colleagues at UNC and Duke; my thanks to Elena Oxman, Meredith Farmer, Kelly Bezio, Ashley Reed, Jenn Williamson, Sarah Marsh, Pat Horn, Lynn Badia, Nick Gaskill, Ben Rogerson, Heath Sledge, Heather Branstetter, Melissa Pojasek, Katie Shrieves, Marc Cohen, Erin Lodeesen, Erin Allingham, Sarah Blythe, Oren Abeles, Erin Branch, Krista Turner, Michael Cadwallader, Daniel Lupton, Doreen Thierauf, Graham Culbertson, Robin Smith, Jittima Pruttipurk, Lynne Feeley, Rebecca Evans, Anna Gibson, Ainehi Edoro, Stefan Waldschmidt, Melody Jue, Bill Hunt, and Alexa Garvoille, for making my life and study more meaningful, enjoyable, and memorable. Thanks also to my t friends, Yoon-Young Shin, Chang-Yoon Hahn, Yunhee Shin, Donghee Om, Junhee Kim, Hana Lee, Wonyul Lee, Chiyoung Oh, David Huh, Jeff Hong, Tschoong Huh, Hyunseok Lee, for their goodness, humor, helpful advice and aid. I am grateful to my department for funding my research with the C. Hugh Holman Fellowship, the Kirby Summer Research Fellowship, and several teaching fellowships. To the tuition award from the Graduate School of UNC-Chapel Hill and a fellowship from Fulbright I owe my thanks as well. Without my teachers at Yonsei University—Chong-Chul Choi, Kyung-Sook Shin, Kyung-Won Lee, Suk-Koo Rhee, Min-Woo Yoon, Hye-Joon Yoon, Hong-Won Suh, Hyungji Park, and Sahng-Young Moon, I would have been unable to begin this journey. It is to these professors that I profoundly owe my growth, and I cannot thank them enough. viii Finally, my deepest debt of gratitude is due to my parents and brother for all the years of unending love and devotion. And most of all, as ever, for everything, thanks to Jina. She simply makes all the difference for me, and I dedicate this volume to her. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The Romance of Democracy……..................................................................1 The Ontology of American Democracy...................................................................4 The Substances of American Democracy..............................................................17 Chapter Outline......................................................................................................29 Chapter I Selfhood, Nationhood, and the Logic of Fantasy in Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland….……………….....................................36 “The Transformation: An American Tale” ...........................................................40 “Wast thou the agent?” .........................................................................................45 The Logic of American Fantasy............................................................................54 Chapter II Edgar Allan Poe and the Paradoxes of Democratic Individualism.................62 Poe and the Deflections of Jacksonian Democracy...............................................67 Poe’s Literary Response to Post-Panic America...................................................80
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