Negative Liberties : Morrison, Pynchon, and the Problem of Liberal Ideology

Cyrus R K Patell

ISBN 10: 0822326698 / ISBN 13: 9780822326694

Editore: Duke University Press Mai 2001, 2001

Riguardo questo articolo

Neuware - Since the nineteenth century, ideas centered on the individual, on Emersonian self-reliance, and on the right of the individual to the pursuit of happiness have had a tremendous presence in the United States-and even more so after the Reagan era. But has this presence been for the good of all In Negative Liberties Cyrus R. K. Patell revises important ideas in the debate about individualism and the political theory of liberalism. He does so by adding two new voices to the current discussion-Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon-to examine the different ways in which their writings embody, engage, and critique the official narrative generated by U.S. liberal ideology. Pynchon and Morrison reveal the official narrative of individualism as encompassing a complex structure of contradiction held in abeyance. This narrative imagines that the goals of the individual are not at odds with the goals of the family or society and in fact obscures the existence of an unholy truce between individual liberty and forms of oppression. By bringing these two fiction writers into a discourse dominated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, George Kateb, Robert Bellah, and Michael Sandel, Patell unmasks the ways in which contemporary U.S. culture has not fully shed the oppressive patterns of reasoning handed down by the slaveholding culture from which American individualism emerged.With its interdisciplinary approach, Negative Liberties will appeal to students and scholars of American literature, culture, sociology, and politics.

Codice articolo 9780822326694

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Negative Liberties : Morrison, Pynchon, and the Problem of Liberal Ideology
• Editore: Duke University Press Mai 2001
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0822326698
• ISBN 13: 9780822326694
• Rilegatura: Taschenbuch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 227 L x 142 A x 12 P (millimetri) 227 millimetri di larghezza per 142 millimetri di altezza per 12 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 435 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Since the nineteenth century, ideas centered on the individual, on Emersonian self-reliance, and on the right of the individual to the pursuit of happiness have had a tremendous presence in the United States—and even more so after the Reagan era. But has this presence been for the good of all? In Negative Liberties Cyrus R. K. Patell revises important ideas in the debate about individualism and the political theory of liberalism. He does so by adding two new voices to the current discussion—Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon—to examine the different ways in which their writings embody, engage, and critique the official narrative generated by U.S. liberal ideology.
Pynchon and Morrison reveal the official narrative of individualism as encompassing a complex structure of contradiction held in abeyance. This narrative imagines that the goals of the individual are not at odds with the goals of the family or society and in fact obscures the existence of an unholy truce between individual liberty and forms of oppression. By bringing these two fiction writers into a discourse dominated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, George Kateb, Robert Bellah, and Michael Sandel, Patell unmasks the ways in which contemporary U.S. culture has not fully shed the oppressive patterns of reasoning handed down by the slaveholding culture from which American individualism emerged.
With its interdisciplinary approach, Negative Liberties will appeal to students and scholars of American literature, culture, sociology, and politics.

Informazioni sull?autore

Cyrus R. K. Patell is Associate Professor of English at New York University. He is the author of Joyce’s Use of History in “Finnegans Wake” and a contributor to the Cambridge History of American Literature, Volume 7: Prose Writing, 1940–1990.