Affective Intensities and the Everyday-Spectacular in American Literature and Culture" (2014)
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2014 Thrillology: Affective Intensities and the Everyday- Spectacular in American Literature and Culture Peter James Pappas Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Pappas, Peter James, "Thrillology: Affective Intensities and the Everyday-Spectacular in American Literature and Culture" (2014). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 441. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/441 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THRILLOLOGY: AFFECTIVE INTENSITIES AND THE EVERYDAY-SPECTACULAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Peter James Pappas M.A. Harvard University, 2005 B.A. Harvard University, 1990 May 2015 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the professors of my Dissertation committee, Drs. Carl Freedman, Bill Boelhower, and Brannon Costello, without whom this project would have been entirely impossible. Thank you for masterfully executing the subtle pedagogical balancing-act of allowing me to pursue my oftentimes meandering and exploratory, if not verging on quixotic, paths of inquiry and subject matters, while simultaneously insisting on rigorous intellectual method and research. You have made this entire process a joy-filled and intriguing adventure—no small feat given the pressure- cooker circumstances of graduate study. I also thank my colleague and dearest friend, Madoka Kishi, both for her love and support, as well as for the many hours of discussion, not only regarding my convulsing dissertation topic, but in thoughtful engagement with myriad matters regarding intellectual life, reading, writing, and all things academic, large and small. I would also like to praise and thank the LSU English department faculty, as a whole, with especial acknowledgement to our exceptional administrative staff for its nurturing, vibrant, and always professional presence. Particular faculty members also deserve particular thanks for their support and guidance, during my years of study at LSU, including: Robert Hamm, Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, John Lowe, Elsie Michie, Irvin Peckham, Kevin Cope, Patrick McGee, Rick Blackwood, Zach Godshall, and Sharon Weltman. Of course, equally vital thanks goes out to my dear friends and peers in the graduate program—too many to list here—whose influence extended beyond academics and the classroom, and made the trials and tribulations of graduate study, and life in ii Louisiana, a joy, no matter the tricky circumstances, stormy weather, and seemingly ever- re-evolving challenges of scholarship. And, of course, inexpressible thanks goes, as forever, to my parents, John and Sheri Lu Pappas, whose enduring support in every aspect of my life is the real foundation upon which any and all accomplishments have been achieved. All my love. Finally, I dedicate this work to my beloved canine companion, Futuro (aka Footy), always by my side. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................v CHAPTER ONE: METHOD AND TELOS .......................................................................1 Everydayisms ...................................................................................................................7 Spectacularism ...............................................................................................................13 Rapture-Telos .................................................................................................................28 CHAPTER TWO: MAKING IT ........................................................................................56 Success Stories: The Pit, The Financier, Oil! ................................................................57 Success on Parade: NBC’s 2012 Broadcast of the Super Bowl .....................................75 CHAPTER THREE: BREAKING IT .............................................................................106 Revolting Subjects: Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo ....................................................107 Appetite for Destruction: Affect Beyond Success in Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis .......147 CHAPTER FOUR: FAKING IT ......................................................................................174 Just for the Thrill of It: Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust ......................................174 Thrill-or-Bust: Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama ............................................................198 Carpe Gaudium: Apple.com and the iPad Roll-out .....................................................233 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................263 Thrill to Power?—Freedom and Socio-Political Agency Reconsidered .....................263 NOTES .............................................................................................................................280 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................284 VITA ................................................................................................................................291 iv ABSTRACT “Thrillology: Affective Intensities and the Everyday-Spectacular in American Literature and Culture” presents thrill as a powerful thematic component centered on immediate affective gratification informing character development and narrative. This perspective rethinks theme as always having an affective dimension that accompanies its conceptual articulations, with the former, in many cases, being the more important element. Thrilled psycho-emotional states emerge, in their own right, as legitimizations of individuality and cultural autonomy from the perspective of the passional subject. Engaging with a broad spectrum of literary and cultural sources spanning the last hundred years, this project investigates various ways in which the self-fulfilling affective intensity of thrill imparts a compelling spectacularization to everyday experience. Case studies featuring Naturalist novels by Norris, Sinclair, and Dreiser expose the pursuit of material success as an intoxicating affect that drives central figures, regardless of the attainment, and inevitable loss, of wealth. In contrast, Ishmael Reed’s MumboJumbo presents a very different frisson of social rebellion that is determined to find fulfillment within its defiance and re-appropriation of cultural identity, no matter the stacked-odds confronting protagonists. And, book-ending nearly a century of fictional engagements with the pervasiveness of fame, fortune, and celebrity in mainstream consciousness, Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust and Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama portray the pursuit of thrill as an end itself, regardless of any realization of stardom. Finally, these thrillological considerations extend into contemporary American social v texts, here embodied by the recurring spectacle of the Super Bowl broadcast and the extravaganza of Apple.com’s 2010 web-based introduction of the iPad. Through its examination of thrill as a positive affective power and the capacity of such excitation to translate into modes of expression and identification, Thrillology adds new perspectives to the body of contemporary affect theoretiocal literary analysis that has been prominently concerned with the examination of negative affective dimensions. This project brings a variety of theoretical fields into conversation in order to achieve a versatile conception of thrill’s affect, combining literary and cultural modes of analysis that co-involve affect theory, performance studies, theorization of spectacle and The Everyday, and effects of mass-media and consumerism. vi CHAPTER ONE: METHOD AND TELOS “Thrillology: Affective Intensities and the Everyday-Spectacular in American Literature and Culture” presents thrill as a powerful thematic component centered on immediate affective gratification that informs character development and narrative. This perspective rethinks theme as always having an affective dimension that accompanies its conceptual articulations, with the former oftentimes being the more important element. Crucially, thrilled psycho-emotional states emerge, in their own right, as legitimizations of individuality and cultural autonomy from the perspective of the passional subject. Engaging with a broad spectrum of literary and cultural sources, this project’s case studies investigate various ways in which affectively-charged states influence subjects’ sense of aspiration, purpose and destiny. This is to say that, in a wide variety of contexts—including, for example, the American Dream, social rebellion, and the allure of fame, which often appear as conceptual