| Contents |
Introduction: theorizing ecstatic consumption and the spectacle of global dystopia in contemporary American literature -- Part I. The spectacle of consumption -- The ecstatic gaze in Don DeLillo's The body artist and Point Omega -- Life in the hills: sex, money, and simulacra in Jane Smiley's Ten days in the hills -- Posthuman identity and the corporate fortress in Marge Piercy's He, she and it -- Part II. The ecstasy of (multi)culturalism -- "Dark as chocolate": (multi)cultural difference and global appetite in Diana Abu-Jaber's The crescent -- Racing alienation and the politics of violence in Chang-Rae Lee's Native speaker -- Part III. The global appetite for dystopia -- Consuming the Holocaust: the postmemory re-production of human trauma and the fire of formal indigestion in Shalom Auslander's Hope: a tragedy -- History as spectacle: 9/11 and the economics of suffering in Alissa Torres' American widow -- "The zero point; or, a new beginning". |
| Abstract |
While modernity aspired to "fix" radical alienation through aesthetics by assigning an ethical value to narratives, contemporary literature and the arts are no longer immune to the impact of commodity culture amplified by globalization. In the world of commodity, corporate logic, and cyborgs, the very notion of identity is frequently turned into a spectacle. Yet, it is also simultaneously mobilized by the search for what Jean Baudrillard describes as the "ecstatic" form that materializes aesthetics. Ecstatic Consumption: The Spectacle of Global Dystopia in Contemporary American Literature investigates not only how these transformations affect gender, racial, and class relations, but also how they impact the representation of historical events. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Access restriction | Available only to authorized users. |
| Technical details | Mode of access: World Wide Web |
| Genre/form | Electronic books. |
| LCCN | 2020415941 |
| ISBN | 1443897965 hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781443897969 hardcover |
