Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 1-9-2018 11:30 AM Narrative Immunities: The Logic of Infection and Defense in American Speculative Fiction Riley R. McDonald The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Schuster, Joshua The University of Western Ontario Joint Supervisor Carmichael, Thomas The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Riley R. McDonald 2018 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation McDonald, Riley R., "Narrative Immunities: The Logic of Infection and Defense in American Speculative Fiction" (2018). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 5174. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/5174 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract In this project I analyze the roles that notions of viruses and immunities and their figurations play within the narrative discourse of speculative fiction. Focusing on a series of texts from twentieth- and twenty-first century American fiction, I seek to examine the ways in which the dialectical confrontation between infection and immunity is explored, reified, or challenged on a narrative level. The terms “virus” and “immunity,” so intrinsic to life sciences, have come into use to describe specific micro-organisms and biological processes only within the last 150 years. Yet these terms possess a significantly longer history in political, legalistic, and philosophical discourses. As such, their use in describing biological activities is always, at some level, a cultivated form of narrative. Central to my discussion is what I call “narrative immunity,” the sense that the narrative perspective within a text acts as an immunizing factor against the threat of viral contamination. Narrative immunity is a way of constructing, within a literary world undergoing a cataclysmic structural event (as is often the case in the plots of viral outbreak), a space and identity of familiarity and recognition for the reader. As such, looking at how immunity and infection are narrated within fiction, I posit, allows us to gain an understanding of how discourses of biopolitics germinate and develop along narrative lines. Through a reading of Jack London, William S. Burroughs, Samuel R. Delany, and Colson Whitehead, I argue that narrative immunity may be deployed in a variety of ideological ways, and that it can support both reactionary impulses and radical liberatory projects. What I argue throughout is that an understanding of how viral infection and immune defense are encoded within the narrative logic of a text allows us a means of grasping the biopolitical constructivism that frequently informs cultural production. ii Keywords Virus; immunity; speculative fiction; Jack London; Colson Whitehead; zombies; plague; Samuel R. Delany; HIV/AIDS; Cold War; American literature; William S. Burroughs; genre study; narratology; materialism; Roberto Esposito; biopolitics; narrative immunity iii Acknowledgments A dissertation makes clear, day in, day out, the necessity of collaboration and support in fostering any kind of intellectual project. Without the constant feedback, encouragement, and much-needed distraction, this project would never have made it out of its tentative initial steps. I would like, first and foremost, to thank my two supervisors, Dr. Joshua Schuster and Dr. Thomas Carmichael, for their enthusiastic and unwavering support from the very beginning. Dr. Schuster always pushed me to think as expansively—and as generously—as I possibly could, and made sure I never left his office without a comprehensive list of books and thinkers with which to engage. He directed my development as a thinker, reader, and writer with a confidence that never wavered, no matter how many times I’d come to doubt myself. Likewise, I have benefitted tremendously from Dr. Carmichael’s warmth and confidence as a mentor. His ability to be able to see the fullness of this project while I was lost in its weeds, and guide me toward those ends was a constant boon. It has been a privilege to train as a scholar under their complementary styles. Likewise, I would like to thank Dr. Thy Phu for her guidance and support as soon as I arrived in London. Indeed, it was Dr. Phu who first suggested thinking about viruses and pointed me to the critical literature that formed the nucleus of this project. It is safe to say that, without Dr. Phu’s generosity, this project would not have existed in the first place. Additionally, I would like to thank my examining committee of Dr. Phu, Dr. Jan Plug, Dr. Wendy Gay Pearson, and Dr. Jason Haslam for their generous feedback and engagement with the project. I would also like to thank Dr. Steven Bruhm, Dr. Alison Lee, Dr. Jonathan Boulter, Dr. Joel Faflak, and Dr. Donna Pennee for their continued support and advice throughout this iv long process, from my initial, befuddled questions on how to write a SSHRC proposal to their assurances that the end was indeed in sight. I have bothered them far more than could be considered polite, but they have always been gregarious in offering their time and advice. The particularly exhilarating stresses of graduate school make for a peculiarly intense and fast-developing bonds of friendship. It is this persistent camaraderie (whether celebratory or commiserating) that made this experience feel both possible and worthwhile. My thanks to Emily Kring, Thomas Stuart, Nahmi Lee, Adam Bowes, Kevin Shaw, Logan Rohde, Fred King, Jason Sunder, Jeremy Colangelo, Diana Samu-Visser, Philip Glennie, Stephanie Oliver, and Donald Calabrese for being there no matter the circumstance. This project would not have been possible without financial support from the Western University Department of English and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would like to acknowledge my gratitude for these funding opportunities. Last but not least, to my family: my mother Cindy, my father Graham, and my sister Maggie. Your love and support has been inexhaustible, and your faith in my abilities (despite my insistence that I had none) unshakeable. It has been your presence, more than anything, that pushed me to keep working away and to complete this process. v Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... vi Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1—The Thinning of the West: Jack London’s Microbial Sublime ............................ 67 1.1 The Frontier and the Border .................................................................................. 71 1.2 The Microbial Sublime ......................................................................................... 81 1.3 After the Outbreak: Contingency and Immunity in The Scarlet Plague ............... 85 1.4 Weaponizing the Microbial in “The Unparalleled Invasion” ................................ 99 1.5 Narrating Backwards: The Romance of Futurity ................................................. 118 Chapter 2—The Voice of the Flesh: Traversing the Immuniverse with William S. Burroughs .......................................... 120 2.1 Mutually Assured Exclusion—The Shape of Cold War Biopolitics .................... 128 2.2 Additional Capacities—The Persistence of the Flesh .......................................... 132 2.3 Atrophied Preface: Naked Lunch and the Biopolitical Flesh ............................... 137 2.4 The Nova Trilogy: The Flesh Made Word ........................................................... 143 2.5 “Dial police”—Scripting Nova ........................................................................... 146 2.6 Rewrite Department: The Immunizing Power of the Cut-Up .............................. 157 2.7 Enfleshing the Word ........................................................................................... 162 2.8 “Shift Linguals”—The Voice and Cut-Up Narration .......................................... 171 2.9 The Qualified Flesh ............................................................................................. 177 Chapter 3—( )topia: Queer Topologies and Topographies in the AIDS Writing of Samuel R. Delany ................................................................ 183 3.1 Discourse and the AIDS Epidemic in America .................................................... 183 3.2 Sick Spaces: How Environment Informs AIDS Thinking ................................... 195 3.3 Communal Ground .............................................................................................. 204 3.4 The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals: Crossing the Bridge of Lost Desire ............ 213 3.5 The Mad Man and the Ecology of Queer Space ................................................... 227 Chapter 4—The Apocalyptic