It’s All In the Family—Metamodernism and the Contemporary (Anglo-) ―American‖ Novel A Dissertation submitted by Terence DeToy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English. Tufts University August 2015 Advisor: Ichiro Takayoshi ii Abstract This dissertation examines the function of family as a thematic in the contemporary Anglo- American novel. It argues that contemporary aesthetics increasingly presents the family as an enabling platform for conciliation with the social totality: as a space of personal development, readying one for life in the wider social field. This analyses hinges on readings of Jonathan Franzen‘s Freedom (2010), Zadie Smith‘s NW (2012), A. M. Homes‘ May We Be Forgiven (2012) and Caryl Phillips‘ In the Falling Snow. In approaching these novels, this project addresses the theoretical lacuna left open by the much-touted retreat of postmodernism as a general cultural-aesthetic strategy. This project identifies these novels as examples of a new and competing ideological constellation: metamodernism. Metamodernism encompasses the widely cited return of sincerity to contemporary aesthetics, though this project explains this development in a novel way: as a cultural expression from within the wider arc of postmodernism itself. One recurrent supposition within this project is that postmodernism, in its seeming nihilism, betrays a thwarted political commitment; on the other hand contemporary metamodern attitudes display the seriousness and earnestness of political causes carried out to an ironic disregard of the political. Metamodernism, in other words, is not a wholesale disavowal of postmodern irony, but a re-arrangement of its function: a move from sincere irony to an ironic sincerity. The central inquiry of this dissertation is into this re-arranged role of family and familial participation amidst this new cultural landscape. My argument is that family and the political have maintained a tense relationship through the twentieth century in the American consciousness. They represent competing models of futurity in a zero-sum game for an individual‘s life-energy. What metamodernism represents, so this dissertation will articulate, is a new form of anti-politics: a fully gratified impulse to depoliticize. Analyzing what this project terms the ―politics of the local,‖ this dissertation will argue that the highly popular and successful models of conscientious capitalism have been superseded. Today, increasingly, redemption from consumerism guilt is itself wrapped up in commodities: the utopian impulse celebrated by Fredric Jameson has itself obtained a price tag. The contemporary novel thus reflects new social functions for that which has trumped the political: the family. iii Acknowledgments First and foremost, my warm thanks to Ichiro Takayoshi who patiently oversaw this project— who, indeed, saw something in it when even I myself was not sure. His approach has influenced mine tremendously and his thinking has impacted my own far beyond the parameters of this project. I am immensely grateful for everything. Much thanks as well to this project‘s wonderful committee members: Kathryn Knapp, Nathan Wolff, and John Lurz. Their prompt and careful insights (and warm encouragement) lead me to think, re-think and re-think again the foundations of this project. A wiser, more enthusiastic group of scholars there is not. Thanks as well to Jill for her patience and kind consideration—for allowing me to talk her ear off whenever I was in the process of developing some new idea. And more importantly, thanks to her for putting up with me to begin with: I‘m not sure how she does it. I also would like to thank my parents, Barbara and Ted, who were good enough to pretend that this long, winding and unprofitable business of education in the humanities was normal, even desirable. Somehow, in spite of everything, they never lost faith in me. Thanks. Finally, thanks to Tufts University for allowing me entry and a chance to prove myself. Thanks for the opportunity to grow and learn; many thanks for the generous fellowship without which I would not be here now writing this. Thanks especially to the English Department, where my love of language, writing and theory found its apogee. iv Table of Contents Introduction …. 2 Chapter 1 - Tangled Up in Red: Politics and the neo-Victorian in Franzen‘s Freedom ….52 Chapter 2 - ―strange convergence‖—Smith‘s NW and the Poetics of Reproductive Futurism...100 Chapter 3 - ―it would seem my effectiveness is coming to its conclusion‖—or, Homes‘ May We be Forgiven and the Return to Childhood….154 Chapter 4 - ―we were free, whatever that means‖—Re-Encountering the Political in Caryl Phillips‘ In the Falling Snow….205 1 It’s All In the Family—Metamodernism and the Contemporary (Anglo-) ―American‖ Novel 2 Introduction This project examines four texts: in order, Jonathan Franzen‘s Freedom, Zadie Smith‘s NW, A. M. Homes‘ May We Be Forgiven, and Caryl Phillips‘ In the Falling Snow. It explores the role family plays as a platform to social inclusion in each of these texts. Intending to maximize the cultural-historiographical scope of this project, I have intentionally selected authors not conventionally read together—authors that crisscross the identity matrices according to which literary studies largely adheres: two males, two females; two whites, two non-whites; two Americans, two Brits. In other words, these are four very different novels doing very different things. What unites these texts thematically is the centrality of nuclear kinship formations as a mechanism to foster conciliation with the wider social field. That is to say, each of these texts is ultimately ―about‖ family, though in an interesting way. They seem to propose a specific use- value for kinship relations: the development of proper citizenship and thus entry into world of the social. This logic may be a familiar one—the domestic space of the family as a developmental site for the child is certainly a very old educational theme; however, what is unique about these texts is that this logic is applied to breadwinning adults. Each of these novels feature loopy, aloof protagonists who are out of sync with their communities; family features as an epistemological constant in these texts because it serves as the highly localized and intimate social site upon which to negotiate the gap separating the estranged individual from the seemingly closed social totality. This dissertation argues that such a thematic tendency laid out across a set of such differing texts perhaps indicates something immanent in our wider contemporary outlook regarding family and sociality; intimacy and community; individuality and collectivity; etc. This project, put simply, proposes to unpack this thematic tendency in the hopes of shedding some light on aesthetics in the contemporary moment. My implicit suggestion throughout will be that 3 the current moment is one much in need of historicizing. This project is conceptually formulated in terms of a growing critical consensus that postmodernism is, as a dominant aesthetic attitude, well on its way out (if not already dead and gone)—―Let‘s just say it; it‘s over,‖ (166) as Linda Hutcheon memorably closes The Politics of Postmodernism. Against all the surety of this outlook we must counter-pose the troubling fact that whatever American society is experiencing at present, after postmodernism, there has yet to emerge a compelling critical account that has garnered any sort of consensus save that we‘re currently experiencing ―post-postmodernism‖ or ―contemporaneity‖—two designations formulated ironically in order to call attention to the moment‘s own theoretical vacuity. As arbitrary as it may immediately seem, the selection of my texts was not haphazard. This project advertises itself as a study in the contemporary novel, though to be clear its focus is on a certain class of contemporary fiction. What these novels share as fictional objects— and thus my rationale for reading them together—is their function of self-conscious cultural metrics: that is, their dual negotiation of the market and literary sensibilities (not to mention hefty social concerns). These texts, in other words, are self-consciously ―literary‖ in that aspire to a high formal textual quality while at the same time maintaining the necessary cultural relevance and readability for market viability. Thus they simultaneously do two things: they attempt a careful and thoughtful critical distance while also paying sedulous attention to the state of contemporary culture as they contribute to it. These texts, I suggest, are in a unique position to offer critics and cultural historians insight into the ideological makeup which is at issue in thinking through the current state of culture in Europe and the United States. As this project will elaborate, an artistic rendering of ―the way we live now‖ is a central concern to the writers of the texts this project examines. Their dual effort to artistically communicate and analyze the contemporary cultural 4 climate makes these texts more useful analytic devices then perhaps more popular, widely- diffuse market-driven texts. The goal of the following pages will not be to lay out the definitive historiographical-theoretical account of culture in the present moment (as if I were capable of such a feat), but rather to draw out conceptual consistencies and attempt to contextualize them. In this way I hope this project may help edge forward the wider conversation toward general