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1
Weissenberg, Clare. "This is not an exit : reading Bret Easton Ellis". Thesis, University of Essex, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.361020.
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Helm, Kimberly Anne. "Is everything disposable? Bret Easton Ellis, abortion, and consumer culture". [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2004. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0004643.
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von, Seth Oscar. "Psykopaten i garderoben : En queer läsning av Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho". Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-21456.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
The novel American Psycho was first published in 1991. It recieved harsh criticism and was viewed as a work of heterosexism, misogyny and pointless violence. Despite the criticism, the protagonist, a wealthy serial killer yuppie namned Patrick Bateman, fascinated the readers. He hides his monstrosity behind a façade of heteronormativity, but this essay shows that the norms in American Psycho are fragile. Batemans relationships are shallow, his identity is constructed out of traditional masculinitynorms and even though he’s homophobic there’s a homoerotic undertone in the text, as well as gothic patterns that give the novel a fair amount of queerness too. This analysis shows that the fear of AIDS, imprinted in the text, works as a representation for Bateman’s discrepancy concerning his sexuality. It brings to light that Bateman’s feelings towards two of his collegues are charachterized by homoerotic yearnings, and that shallow readings, where the text is not interpreted, allows the brutal violence to divert attention from the novel’s queer meaning.Romanen American Psycho publicerades 1991. Den fick hård kritik och sågs som ett heterosexistiskt, misogynt verk fullt av meningslöst våld. Trots kritiken fascinerade protagonisten, den förmögna seriemördaryuppien Patrick Bateman, läsarna. Bateman döljer sin monstrositet bakom en heteronormativ fasad men den här uppsatsen visar att textens heteronorm är bräcklig. Batemans relationer är ytliga, identiteten är konstruerad från traditionella maskulinitetsnormer, han är homofobisk, även då gotiska, homoerotiska undertoner präglar texten. Analysen visar att AIDS-skräcken som präglar boken är synonym med Batemans sexualitetsdiskrepans, att hans känslor för två av hans kollegor är av homoerotisk karaktär, samt att i ytliga läsningar av romanen, där texten inte tolkas, gör det explicita våldet att läsarens uppmärksamhet avleds från romanens queera innebörd.
4
Ettler, Justine. "The Best Ellis For Business: A Re-Examination Of The Mass Media Feminist Critique Of American Psycho". Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/10020.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
The Best Ellis For Business analyses the mass media feminist critique of Bret Easton Ellis’s third novel, American Psycho (1991), and employs this to challenge the dominant modes of reading Ellis’s work. The thesis identifies the major shifts in literary criticism about American Psycho, both journalistic and scholarly, and discusses them in relation to the novel’s problematic sexualisation of misogynistic violence. In particular, the neutralisation of the mass media feminist critique in scholarly literary criticism is questioned, then contextualised in terms of the backlash, and finally linked to postmodern defences of the novel that ignore the important role played by the reader. The thesis employs a mixture of narratological and theoretical approaches to perform close readings of the sexually violent scenes. The thesis challenges dominant defences of American Psycho such as the ubiquitous defence of the novel as a satire, as well as the equally prevalent defence of the novel as a postmodern classic. The formalist qualities of the novel, which this thesis claims make it a postmodern parody, prevent the novel from ever being read as a straightforward satire. Further, analyses that focus on the novel’s form at the expense of its content tend to fail to account for the reader’s response to the sexualised violence. This thesis raises the oft-ignored but important issue of reader competence, particularly in relation to the marketing practices of Ellis’s corporate publishers. It will also be argued here that the novel’s excessive ambiguity leaves the reader no choice other than to resort to their biographical knowledge of the author in order to make sense of it. Thus, the thesis rereads the novel in relation to Ellis’s biography, as well as in relation to Ellis’s recent revelations about his sexuality and his interview practice.
5
Roche, David. "L'imagination malsaine : Russell Banks, Raymond Carver, David Cronenberg, Bret Easton Ellis, David Lynch /". Paris : l'Harmattan, 2008. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb412407868.
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Silva, Luciano Cabral da. "The fourfold serial killer in Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho". Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2015. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=8749.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoPatrick Bateman, o protagonista narrador do romance American Psycho (1991), de Bret Easton Ellis, confunde por ser rico, bonito e educado e, ao mesmo tempo, torturador, assassino e canibal. Mas esta personalidade antagônica não o torna singular. O que o particulariza são as quatro faces que ele apresenta ao longo de sua narrativa: (1) ele consome mercadorias e humanos, (2) compete para ter reconhecimento, (3) provoca horror por suas ações, e (4) não é um narrador confiável. Sendo um yuppie (termo popular usado nos Estados Unidos na década de 1980 para denominar jovens e bem sucedidos profissionais urbanos), Bateman é materialista e hedonista. Ele está imerso em uma sociedade de consumo, fato que o impossibilita de perceber diferenças entre produtos e pessoas. Sendo um narcisista, ele se torna um competidor em busca de admiração. No entanto, Bateman também é um serial killer e suas descrições detalhadas de torturas e assassinatos horrorizam. Por fim, nós leitores duvidamos de sua narrativa ao notarmos inconsistências e ambiguidades. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) afirma que uma sociedade extremamente capitalista transforma tudo que nela existe em algo consumível. Christopher Lasch (1991) afirma que o lendário Narciso deu lugar a um novo, controverso, dependente e menos confiante. A maioria das vítimas de Bateman são membros de grupos socialmente marginalizados, como mendigos, homossexuais, imigrantes e prostitutas, o que o torna uma identidade predatória, segundo Arjun Appadurai (2006). A voz autodiegética e a narrativa incongruente do protagonista, contudo, impedem que confiemos em suas palavras. Estas são as quatro faces que pretendo apresentar deste serial killer
The autodiegetic protagonist Patrick Bateman, in Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho (1991), is a troubling character, for he is highly-educated, wealthy and handsome as well as a torturer, a killer and a cannibal. This antagonistic behavior, nonetheless, does not make him a singular character. The four sides he presents throughout the novel are singular, though: (1) he consumes humans and commodities equally; (2) he competes for recognition and admiration; (3) his acts are horrific; and (4) his narration is unreliable. As a yuppie (a popular term from the 1980s used to define young urban U.S. professionals), Bateman is materialistic and hedonistic. As he lives off the excesses of a consumer society, he is incapable of distinguishing people from products. As a self-absorbed, narcissistic protagonist, he becomes a competitor struggling to get approval from his peers. Nevertheless, Bateman is a serial killer, and his detailed descriptions of tortures and murders are horrifying. Finally, we readers cannot rely on his narrative once we notice ambiguities and divergences. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) posits that an extremely capitalist society forces people to be commodified. Christopher Lasch (1991) asseverates that the old legendary Narcissus gave birth to a new one, paradoxical, dependent and less confident. Most of Batemans victims are socially-marginalized characters, members of minority groups, such as homeless people, homosexuals, immigrants, and prostitutes. As a matter of fact, Bateman may be regarded as having a predatory identity, as defined by Arjun Appadurai (2006). However, this autodiegetic narrator, together with his inconsistent narrative, cannot be entirely trusted. These are the points I want to debate regarding this fourfold serial killer
7
Andersson, Jim. "Psykopatfabriken : Maskulinitetskonstruktioner i Iain Banks The Wasp Factory och Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho". Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-302290.
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8
Alt, Constanze. "Zeitdiagnosen im Roman der Gegenwart Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, Michel Houellebecqs Elementarteilchen und die deutsche Gegenwartsliteratur". Berlin Trafo, 2009. http://d-nb.info/992353327/04.
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Weibels-Balthaus, Gregor. "The self in trouble: young adults in the urban consumer society of the 1980s in Janowitz, Ellis, and McInerney". [S.l. : s.n.], 2005. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=976449706.
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Nabo, João Luís Brejo. "O escritor e o seu duplo em Bret Easton Ellis: uma contribuição para a análise do processo de auto-referencialidade no gótico norte-americano contemporâneo". Master's thesis, Universidade de Évora, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10174/18409.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
A presente dissertação tem como objectivo contribuir para o estudo do fenómeno do Duplo, inserido no género Gótico Americano, na obra do escritor norte-americano contemporâneo Bret Easton Ellis, na tradição de Stevenson, Poe e Hawthorne, os primeiros a lançar os fundamentos desta temática nas suas obras. Assim, foram estudados os motivos que conduzem ao desenvolvimento do tema do Duplo nas produções ficcionais do autor seleccionado, tendo sido fundamental o seu estudo à luz das teorias psicanalíticas de Sigmund Freud e Otto Rank. Analisámos alguns dos autores anglo- americanos, que mais colaboraram para a definição deste cânone literário, e cujas obras, temáticas e técnicas narrativas influenciaram o processo criativo de Bret Easton Ellis. Por fim, utilizámos toda a nossa pesquisa para encontrar no autor em estudo a necessidade da criação da figura do Duplo nas suas produções literárias como expressão de auto-reflexão e auto-referencialidade literária, com relevo para os seus romances American Psycho (1991) e Lunar Park (2004). ABSTRACT; The present dissertation aims to contribute to the study of the motif of the Double, in American Gothic genre, in the literary work by the contemporary North-American writer Bret Easton Ellis, who has been following the tradition of Stevenson, Poe and Hawthorne, the first writers to lay the foundations of this issue in their works. Thus, we studied the reasons that lead to the development of the theme of the Double in his fictional productions in the light of psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank. We examined some of the authors, classic and contemporary, who contributed to the definition of the literary canon, and whose works, themes and narrative techniques influenced the creative process of Bret Easton Ellis. Finally, we used our entire research to find in the author the need to create the figure of the Double in his literary productions as an expression of self-reflexivity, self-referentiality, namely in his novels American Psycho (1991) and Lunar Park (2004).
11
Busonik, Stephen William. "Epistemic structuralism in the postmodern novel: The examples of William Gaddis, J. G. Ballard, and Bret Easton Ellis /". The Ohio State University, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487847309053231.
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Bengtsson, Tomas. "Självframställningens dilemma : En biografisk och tematisk undersökning av självframställningen i Bret Easton Ellis roman Lunar Park". Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-191833.
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Annesley, James. "Blank fiction : culture, consumption and the contemporary American novel". Thesis, University of Sussex, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321347.
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Busonik, Stephen. "Epistemic structuralism in the postmodern novel : the examples of William Gaddis, J.G. Ballard, and Bret Easton Ellis /". Connect to resource, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1260971951.
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Hardie, Michael L. "Using Hamlet and Peter Pan: Family Issues, Ghosts, and Memory in Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park". ScholarWorks@UNO, 2016. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2233.
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16
d'Hont, Coco. "Brutal bodies : exploring transgression through the fiction of Chuck Palahniuk, Poppy Z. Brite, and Bret Easton Ellis". Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2016. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/59676/.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This thesis explores how American transgressive fiction of the 1990s represents and interrogates transgressive processes in its extra-textual context. It shows in what ways transgressive fiction visualizes how transgression functions, not simply as a counter-cultural phenomenon, but more as a central social mechanism. The thesis makes four contributions. First, it critically assesses existing definitions of transgression as counter-cultural, instead conceptualizing transgression as a mechanism which (re)develops central social ideologies. The project traces how the transgression of ideological boundaries forms a cyclical process which (re)produces ideological frameworks. Second, the thesis uses this re-definition to explore 1990s transgressive fiction in its social context. The study investigates how the late 1980s, characterized by phenomena such as neoliberal politics and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, inspired transgressive fiction produced during the 1990s. Thirdly, the thesis constructs an interdisciplinary methodological approach to dissect how the body came to play a crucial role in this context as a site through which transgression occurred. Drawing from biopolitical and queer theory, the study deepens the understanding of transgression as both a literary phenomenon and a socio-political process. Finally, the thesis compares the work of three transgressive authors whose work has not yet been analysed together in depth. It analyses the fiction of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk in combination with that of Poppy Z. Brite, an author who has, in comparison, been neglected by academia. The analysis results in an increased understanding of the dynamics of transgression in 1990s American fiction and society, showing that transgression is a cyclical process which reproduces and subsequently dissolves ideological boundaries, a practice which results in a temporary crisis which ultimately enables the (re)development of ideologies. The thesis concludes that transgressive fiction of the period represents, exaggerates and interrogates transgression as a cyclical process which (re)configures ideologies in its extra-textual context.
17
Busonik, Stephen. "Epistemic structuralism in the postmodern novel : the examples of William Gaddis, J. G. Ballard, and Bret Easton Ellis". The Ohio State University, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1260971951.
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Fredriksson, Sophia. "Abandon All Hope : An Analysis of American Psycho". Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Engelska, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-6391.
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Wadström, Simon. "Anteckningar från en skyskrapa : En studie av Fjodor Dostojevskijs Anteckningar från ett källarhål och Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho". Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-150993.
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Lutton, Alison Mary. "Authorship and the production of literary value, 1982-2012 : Bret Easton Ellis, Paul Auster, J.T. LeRoy, and Tucker Max". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3aa64675-73a2-42a8-be24-cb75f034e9de.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Definitions of celebrity authorship and material textuality at the turn of the twenty-first century have predominantly emphasised the implicitly negative aspects of contemporary developments in the literary marketplace. Particularly prominent are arguments that the practice of authorship has become subject to homogenisation by the matrix of celebrity in which successful writers are now expected to function; and, further, that the changing nature of texts themselves and the ways in which they are marketed is eroding the implicitly superior position traditionally held by literature in the cultural marketplace. This thesis views such readings as pessimistic, and offers an alternative, seeking to formulate a new critical approach to literary value in the contemporary sphere which would appreciate notions of celebrity, populism, and digital mediation as integral and productive aspects of how literary value is formed today. Through in-depth focus on the cases of a number of unconventional contemporary American authors whose work demonstrates differing, innovative approaches to the process of authorship, this thesis exposes the ways in which contemporary, atypically ‘literary’ instances of writing can and do work within and develop beyond traditional conceptualisations of authorship and literary value. Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, largely critically considered prototypical ‘celebrity’ authors, are in the first chapter reconsidered as writers whose understanding of their position within the literary marketplace affords them a self-conscious, critical perspective on the notion of celebrity in their work and public personae. The productively self-conscious author-figure is reconsidered in the second chapter, which reads the individual and joint works of author Paul Auster and visual artist Sophie Calle as foregrounding the process of creative collaboration as uniquely illuminating and transformative within the contemporary literary sphere. The notion of dual authorship is revisited and reconceptualised in the third chapter, which considers JT LeRoy and the practice of hoax authorship, outlining how this process forces the reformulation of literary value, particularly in a contemporary setting in which authors are accountable for their work in newer, more visible ways. The final chapter expands these previously-introduced themes to consider bloggers-turned-authors, particularly Tucker Max and Julie Powell, and the impact of the merging of old and new textualities on both the orientation of the figure of the writer and the way in which value is attached to his texts by readers. Ultimately, the unconventional nature of these examples is shown to belie the universality of the representations of value they enact, contributing to a full and salient account of how literary value is determined at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
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Leypoldt, Günter. "Casual silences : the poetics of minimal realism from Raymond Carver and the New Yorker School to Bret Easton Ellis /". Trier : Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2001. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb388753788.
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Simon, Alaina R. "Satire and Sympathy in American Psycho". University of Toledo Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=uthonors1355508133.
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Ferry, Peter. "Masculinity in Manhattan : reading hegemonic masculinity in selected novels of Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis and Jed Rubenfeld". Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.601475.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
The study of men and masculinities has enjoyed steady progress over the last four decades within the fields of sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. It is only in the last ten to fifteen years that Masculinity Studies scholarship has begun to recognise the sociological value of literary masculinities. An area of research still in its infancy, this thesis sets out to address the lack of critical discussion on masculinity in both the fields of Masculinity Studies and American literary studies by presenting a case-study analysis of the selected works of Paul Auster, Don Delillo, Bret Easton Ell is and Jed Rubenfeld. Gendering our reading of these Manhattan writers underscores masculinity as a central theme in their novels. What connects these authors is their employment of the one of the great figures in the history of literature: the flaneur. While scholars have identified masculinity as a major issue related to the flaneur, they have argued strongly for the disintegrative effect of the urban metropolis on the male flaneur's subjectivity. This inevitable "invisibility" of the flaneur shares notable parallels with major debates within the field of Masculinity Studies. With the majority of critical investigation placing undoubtedly worthy focus upon nonhegemonic groups of males, the hegemonic group is often overlooked and consequently becomes invisible. Carefully considering the negotiation of masculinity in these novels alongside Raewyn Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity illustrates that the hegemonic male, rather than existing as a static character type, is a complex individual shaped in relation to the nonhegemonic other. Connell's concept allows patterns to emerge in the performance of the protagonists of these novels within the masculine-affirming hierarchical frameworks in Manhattan. Ultimately this study aims to rehabilitate the flaneur as a sociologically conscious individual employed by these authors to write their counterhegemonic narratives of masculinity in Manhattan.
24
Wagner, Annette. "Postmoderne im Adoleszenzroman der Gegenwart : Studien zu Bret Easton Ellis, Douglas Coupland, Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre und Alexa Hennig von Lange /". Frankfurt am Main : P. Lang, 2007. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb41147777t.
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Hawryluk, Lynda J., University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College e of Communication Design and Media School. "Call waiting". THESIS_CAESS_CDM_Hawryluk_L.xml, 2001. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/6.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This thesis examines the life and career of Bret Easton Ellis, and the influences of his work on the author's development as a writer. Part one encapsulates a novel written specifically for this thesis. 'Call waiting' is a harsh look at modern friendships, the role of work in these relationships and the proliferation of shallow communication through the advent of email. A critical reflection follows, examining the process that led to the novel's creation. Three specific areas are focussed on: the direct influence of Ellis' novel 'The rules of attraction' on the overall themes of 'Call waiting', the realisation of the project and the various editing changes and narrative developments that arose during the writing of the novel, and an examination of the inspiration behind the novel's creation. Part two considers Ellis' role in the literary world of the 1980s, his own complicity in the creation of a career as a celebrity author, and the carefully manufactured persona Ellis presents to the world. In Part three the thesis is concluded with a close analysis of the publication of Ellis' controversial novel 'American psycho'. This chapter explores the negative publicity the novel attracted and the possible causes of the ensuing backlash against the author.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
26
Wallbanks, Mark. "The vicissitudes of the authentic self: a literary mapping of the authentic self from John Milton's Paradise lost to Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama /Mark Wallbanks". HKBU Institutional Repository, 2017. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/364.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Since the rise of individualism in the seventeenth century there has been increasing pressure on individuals to define themselves in the public eye. This has led to the recent phenomena of identity politics and self-branding. Yet how is one's true identity - if such a thing exists - ever expressed externally? How do individuals deal with the inner and outer aspects of identity? These are some of the issues which impinge upon the ethics of authenticity. This thesis investigates the development of the concept of the authentic self from its inception in the modern period to the postmodern. Through an analysis of the various tropes of literary texts, I shall illustrate how the concept of authenticity has travelled and transformed between cultural and temporal contexts. The body of the thesis contains five central chapters. Chapter 1 represents Paradise Lost (1667) as the end of one world and the beginning of another. The "Satanic" trope introduces the contingency of transgression and displacement in regard to authentic self-definition. With the birth of the modern epoch, I argue that the collapse of the epic totality instigated the liberation of self through the process of individuation, yet the corresponding loss of "place" in the social order evoked existential angst. In the second chapter I argue that Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) is an apposite inclusion in the tradition of St. Augustine's and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions. Through analysis of the "island" trope I assert that, even given the most perfect conditions of solipsism, the individual remains an inherently social being that retains a primordial compulsion for dialogical inscription of the self. In chapter 3, an analysis of the trope of "voice" as a metonym for ideology in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) portrays Kurtz and Marlow as opposing sides of the authenticity struggle against the ideological allure of collective and absolute power. Chapter 4 associates Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (1934) with the anarchic egocentrism and intense individualism of Max Stirner's philosophy as a means of rebelling against the demands of social collectivism. In this chapter I analyse the "dream" trope in terms of Miller's trademark use of surreal metaphor which, I argue, provides a means of escape from the influence of collective identities. Finally, the fifth chapter will discuss the trope of "image terrorism" in reference to Glamorama (1998). This trope addresses the problemata of the globally destabilising influences of celebrity and terrorism, the tyranny of consumerism, and the Debordian Society of the Spectacle. The chapter raises the question of how, indeed if, in a globalized postmodern world with ever reducing horizons of differentiation, travel remains the last viable option in the pursuit of the authentic self.
27
Eigeartaigh, Aoileann N. "'I shop, therefore I am' : consumerism and the mass media in the novels of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland". Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/1790.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This thesis argues that consumerism and the mass media wield an unparalleled influence over contemporary North American society, and that these forces constitute the primary means through which identity is constituted. The historical and theoretical developments that have led to the foregrounding of these forces are outlined in the introduction - developments, it is argued, that are intrinsically connected to the social upheava1 that characterized America in the late 1960's and early 1970's, while their presence in and effects on the fiction of four contemporary North American writers - Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland - are examined in the main body of the thesis. Chapter I focuses on Pynchon whose novels, it is argued, are the product of a uniquely post-1960's America, which mourns the sacrifice of traditional ideals to the corporate mindset which has been prevalent since ths 1980's Pynchon's dominant metaphor for the direction in which he believes American society to be moving is the thermodynamic concept of entropy, which stipulates that all prqress is towards death. His novels abound with characters who disintegrate due to the information overload fostered by their media-based world. However, he retains his faith that a return to historical values and traditions will stem and even reverse the entropic tide DeLillo, a close contemporary of Pynchon's, draws on a different aspect of the legacy of the 1960's, for his writing is overshadowed by the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy and the years of turbulence that ensued. His novels are ultimately more pessimistic because his characters do not succeed in escaping from the repressive narratives of consumerism and the mass media in order to reassert their own personalities. One reason for this failure, it is argued, is that DeLillo's characters represent a metaphorical dramatization of the dichotomy between the modernist desire for structure and the postmodernist embrace of fluidity and uncertainty. The fictional characters of the younger authors, Ellis and Coupland, inhabit this postmodern world where all experience has been rendered depthless and traditional ontological and epistemological certainties have been collapsed Ellis' characters fluctuate between the extremes of apathy and violence as they search for a way of preventing their psyches from disintegrating amidst the surrounding chaos. Neither one of these options brings - any relief. Coupland is more optimistic about the ability of his characters to survive and even prosper in the contemporary world. He arms them with the linguistic and technological skills necessary to adapt to the rapid social and technological changes. Most importantly of all, he draws on the sense of objectivity fostered by his own background as a Canadian in order to provide them with an alternative and a sense of escape from the media-saturated environment of the American West Coast. What is perhaps most remarkable about these four authors as a group is that in spite of their obvious insight into the nature of the contemporary postmodern world, they are unwilling - or perhaps even unable - to fully relinquish their hold on a number of traditional metanarratives, most notably the ideal of the stable, supportive family unit. This implies a degree of uncertainty and perhaps even of fear on their parts about fully committing to the fluidity of contemporary culture.
28
Hawryluk, Lynda J. "Call waiting". Thesis, View thesis View thesis, 2001. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/6.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This thesis examines the life and career of Bret Easton Ellis, and the influences of his work on the author's development as a writer. Part one encapsulates a novel written specifically for this thesis. 'Call waiting' is a harsh look at modern friendships, the role of work in these relationships and the proliferation of shallow communication through the advent of email. A critical reflection follows, examining the process that led to the novel's creation. Three specific areas are focussed on: the direct influence of Ellis' novel 'The rules of attraction' on the overall themes of 'Call waiting', the realisation of the project and the various editing changes and narrative developments that arose during the writing of the novel, and an examination of the inspiration behind the novel's creation. Part two considers Ellis' role in the literary world of the 1980s, his own complicity in the creation of a career as a celebrity author, and the carefully manufactured persona Ellis presents to the world. In Part three the thesis is concluded with a close analysis of the publication of Ellis' controversial novel 'American psycho'. This chapter explores the negative publicity the novel attracted and the possible causes of the ensuing backlash against the author.
29
Granger, Remy Maud. "Le roman posthumain". Paris 3, 2006. http://www.theses.fr/2006PA030040.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
A travers l'analyse comparée des romans de Houellebecq, Dantec, Gibson et Ellis, cette thèse cherche à définir un nouveau genre littéraire transnational que j'appelle Le roman posthumain. L'accès à l'écriture des romanciers posthumains correspond à l'âge de la toute-puissance des médias. Leur statut d'écrivain s'inscrit dans une stratégie de manipulation de la couverture médiatique. Experts en scandale, ils sont l'illustration d'une double évolution : celle du statut de la littérature face à l'information, et de la posture de l'écrivain, entre engagement et star system. Ces textes peuvent d'abord se définir comme discours de la fin. Fin des temps et esthétique apocalyptique : les romans posthumains construisent une temporalité de l'imminence. Fin de l'homme et mort du personnage : l'âge posthumain signale le déclin de l'individu. Ce discours pessimiste s'élabore à travers un style éminemment satirique, qui révèle la posture prophétique des auteurs. La satire fonctionne à la fois comme une position morale, entre prophétie et dystopie, et comme une technique narrative qui fait entendre le langage global. Ces mutations linguistiques donnent lieu à une redéfinition générique du roman. Les phénomènes de simulation et de massification mettent en question les limites génériques des textes. L'espace virtuel met en question l'espace fictif, le thème du tourisme met en question la construction de l'intrigue, et le motif gothique contribue à la déréalisation de ces fictions. Les romanciers posthumains élaborent un modèle romanesque qui, bien qu'inspiré par le réalisme, se voit marqué par la désincarnation et l'immatérialité. Ces récits obsédés par l'actuel perdent de vue le vivantThrough a comparative analysis of the novels of Houellebecq, Dantec, Ellis and Gibson, this dissertation attempts to define the transnational literary genre that I call The Posthuman Novel. The posthuman novelists are children of the media-age. Their abilities to use and abuse media coverage makes them experts in the orchestration of various scandals, which illustrate the evolution of the status of literature at the mass media age, and the position of the writer, between intellectual engagement and star system. These texts can be defined first ideologically as discourses of the endings: End of the world and apocalyptic aesthetics; end of man and death of the character. The posthuman age is the defeat of the individual. Generally the posthuman writers are testifying to the loss of those modern conceptions of man, space and time inspired by transcendence and ideals. We will also observe the novels endings as they illustrate a problematic relationship with utopia. This pessimistic discourse is elaborated through a highly satirical style, which reveals the provocative and prophetic stance of these writers. The stylistic analysis of the satiric techniques shows that satire functions as a moral position, linked to prophecy, but also as a narrative technique which reveals the mutations of language and makes the global language audible. These linguistic mutations give way to a generic redefinition of the novel. Phenomena such as simulation and massification question the generic limits of the texts. The integration of virtual spaces in the narrative questions the fictional space, the staging of tourism questions the construction of the plot and the gothic pattern contribute to the derealisation of these fictions. In fact, the posthuman writers build the model of a disincarnated novel – a novel which has freed itself of the limits of realism, but has also lost touch with the flesh. Those narratives obsessed by the actual, are loosing sight of the living
30
Hawryluk, Lynda J. "Call waiting /". View thesis View thesis, 2001. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20030422.094611/index.html.
Testo completo
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Chan, Suet Ni. "In the periphery of the margin: white masculinity in contemporary American fiction /Chan Suet Ni". HKBU Institutional Repository, 2017. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/351.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
My thesis discusses male identity in contemporary culture in relation to work by Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk. Such work reflects the problems, anxieties, and dilemmas of the masculine subject in American culture. The characters in my six selected texts, namely, Ellis' Less Than Zero, American Psycho, and Glamorama, and Palahniuk's Fight Club, Survivor, and Choke, symbolize a generation with no discernible future. Each male protagonist finds himself in a place of no time and no meaning because image and illusion have supplanted essence. These characters combat culture-prevalent emptiness in the sense that each ironically re-asserts his so-called individuality against the dogmas of the establishment. Each, furthermore, is aware that his existence is not subject to a higher order or preset goal: traditional morality thereby has no meaning. My selected texts feature masculine subjects struggling with their own contingencies once stripped of given privileges (gender, class, race, and otherwise). To examine the notion of masculinity, I emphasize the role of power relations in gender construction. Bret Easton Ellis characterizes a world of appearance defined by particular styles. Chuck Palahniuk's males are empty--they do not have any definitive meaning. Judith Butler challenges the proposition of a fixed identity, or an essential permanent masculinity or femininity as structured and reified by social norms. Therefore, we should not view masculinity as a cohesive and homogeneous category. Following Foucault, I examine the relationship between masculine subjects and social practices. At stake here, is how the performative articulation of proper masculinity disempowers and imprisons the masculine subject in a material form over which he has no control. The body becomes the object of desire and thus the vehicle/preserve of the sense of powerlessness that the masculine subject experiences daily within a hegemonic culture. Power is exercised through a dominant presence. This presence structures as a binary classification serving to underscore differences and ensure particular privileged social positioning. The proposition of a fixed identity, or an essential permanent masculinity or femininity, is structured and reified by social norms. Masculinity as a cohesive and homogeneous category is historically represented as an unstable center from which all other identities are defined.
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Rymajdo, Kamila. "Why is everyone not falling in love? : love and sex in the neoliberal era as seen through the lens of Bret Easton Ellis' 'Less Than Zero', 'The Rules of Attraction', 'The Informers' and 'American Psycho'". Thesis, Kingston University, 2016. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/37788/.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Notions of love and sex are rewritten by every era but this essay concerns itself with the period of 1980s and 90s neoliberalism, as seen through the texts that make up the early oeuvre of Bret Easton Ellis, namely 'Less Than Zero', 'The Rules of Attraction', 'The Informers', 'American Psycho' and their film adaptations. I began my research by examining various notions of love, from Plato all the way to the 90s pop culture classic 'Clueless' (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1995), and eventually narrowed my focus to three distinct and opposing theories, which I will describe as romantic love, love as use of erotic capital and sex as liberation, which I found in Alain Badiou's 'In Praise of Love', Catherine Hakim's 'Honey Money' and Wilhelm Reich's 'The Sexual Revolution'. These frameworks were chosen in accordance with my decision to examine love under the specific conditions of neoliberalism, following the study of such theorists as the already mentioned Slavoj Žižek, as well as David Harvey, Renata Salecl and others. It is from this juncture that I began to write a novel that explores love and sex through a layered approach, where meaning is accumulated through structural and stylistic choices as well as plot and character development. It soon became apparent that a writer who examines love in the throes of disintegration as a result of the assault of neoliberalism and whose emphatic use of style to critique this system I drew on most closely was Bret Easton Ellis.
33
Ghita, Cristina. "Pastiche and Abjection in American Psycho". Thesis, Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23314.
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Carstens, Hester. "Drempellewens : die uitbeelding van bewussyn in vyf debuutromans (tesis) en Hanna in die park (roman)". Thesis, Link to the online version, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/410.
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Stone, Ben. "Royal palms: Exploring 1980s neoliberal characterisation through Foucauldian power and discourse". Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2019. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/132603/1/Benjamin_Stone_Thesis.pdf.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This practice-led novel and exegesis explores the characterisation of an anecdotal 1980s Wall Street junket on Queensland's Gold Coast in terms of Foucauldian power and discourse. Problematising the subject's decentred ontology implied by the life sciences, Foucault's theories are adapted to illustrate characterisation as a site of discursive interpellation and contest in neoliberal fiction. Decentred, the subject as a scape of discursive practice reveals the struggle between 'personal discourse' and the organisational power of corporations. This has implications not only for character intentionality and artificial subjects, but provides a framework where humanism and organisational agency can be approached as an ontology of the self.
36
Tsoulou, Martha. "After postmodernism : contemporary theory and fiction". Thesis, Brunel University, 2014. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/13753.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
There is a consensus today that we have witnessed the end of postmodernism in both fiction and theory. Due to contemporary fiction’s break with postmodernism being recent, little research has been done to outline the parameters of what exactly this break entails and its relationship to theory and current socio-political issues. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to differentiate between postmodernist fiction and contemporary fiction that was produced from the late 90’s up to today, outline its main characteristics and suggest alternative ways theory may be used to critically analyse fiction. We will be looking at how Habermas’s, Agamben’s, Žižek’s and Badiou’s theories, as well as, a reconsideration of some of Derrida’s and Baudrillard’s theories, can help elucidate certain aspects of contemporary fiction and vice versa. Some of the novelists that will be considered in this discussion are Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Douglas Coupland, J G Ballard, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe and Michel Houellebecq due to their close association with postmodernism and its aftermath. The thesis is divided thematically in five chapters. In the first chapter we will be discussing the impact of 9/11 on contemporary fiction in relation to Derrida’s, Habermas’s, Baudrillard’s and Žižek’s responses to the attacks. The second chapter is concerned with notions of reality and its representations in contemporary fiction. It will be discussed how they differ from Baudrillard’s conceptualisation of hyperreality during postmodernity in light of Badiou’s and Žižek’s theory mainly. The realist/antirealist debate will also be addressed. The third chapter is a consideration of notions of subjectivity in both contemporary theory and fiction and how they may be said to differ from playful, schizophrenic representations of the subject during postmodernity. The fourth chapter is concerned with the return of the political in both theory and fiction after the supposed apoliticality of the postmodern novel, which we will also be addressing. The final chapter is an investigation of the re-emergence of the religious in contemporary culture, including the novel, which proves that the death of meta-narratives may not have been that final after all.
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Steiner, Liza. "Échos sadiens dans la littérature contemporaine : énoncé d’une nouvelle économie politique". Thesis, Strasbourg, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016STRAC015.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Ce travail interroge les points de convergence existant entre l’œuvre du Marquis de Sade et celle d’un corpus d’écrivains contemporains : Tony Duvert, Catherine Millet, Aldo Busi, Elfriede Jelinek, James Graham Ballard, Bret Easton Ellis, Don DeLillo et Nelly Arcan. En effet, l’hypothèse surgie de la scène sadienne alliant sexualité et économie trouve un écho dans la littérature contemporaine. Mais la structure sociale, libérale et individualiste, qui s’y trouve décrite, engage des protocoles de lecture différents. De la posture élitaire de libertins sadiens mettant en danger les fondements de la société, au nivellement démocratique impliquant un nouveau conformisme, se joue une mutation des rapports intersubjectifs. En nous livrant des personnages soumis à la tyrannie du consumérisme, les auteurs de ce corpus redéfinissent l’économie des passions et de la jouissance. De la numération des partenaires à une production sexuelle devenue production économique, notre corpus fait valoir le désir comme un analyseur social des nouveaux rapports de violence. Si les stratégies narratives de nos auteurs varient, les gestes d’écriture concourent tous à déjouer ce nouvel Éros mortifèreThis work studies the ground shared by the work of the Marquis de Sade and a corpus of works by contemporary writers : Tony Duvert, Catherine Millet, Aldo Busi, Elfriede Jelinek, James Graham Ballard, Bret Easton Ellis, Don DeLillo and Nelly Arcan. Sade’s hypothesis of a combination of sexuality and economy finds echoes in contemporary literature. But the social, liberal and individualistic structure which such literature describes entails different reading protocols. From the elitist posture of Sadian libertines, which endangers the society’s foundations, to democratic leveling, which involves a new conformism, we can see a mutation of the intersubjective relations in progress. The authors of this corpus redefine the economy of passion and the economy of enjoyment by presenting us with characters subjected to the tyranny of consumerism. From the enumeration of sexual partners to a sexual production turned into economic production, our corpus highlights desire as a mode of analysis of new violence within society. The authors in our corpus may not use the same narrative strategies, but their respective ways of writing all contribute to defeating this deadly new Eros
38
Grivas, Steven. "Invasive cultures: American culture in Bret Easton Ellis' American psycho". 1999. http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/7130.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
"Invasive cultures: American culture in Bret Easton Ellis’ American psycho” proposes that Ellis' small body of fictional works can be read as active critiques of American culture, detailing the ways in which this culture informs the current condition of American society in recent times. The larger intent of this thesis is to delineate and examine the relays between American culture, the forces of capitalism that underlie them, and their significant bearing on the social behaviour, personal expression and psychology of Ellis’ characters, who often directly assimilate and embody its characteristics, whether physically or mentally. Ellis presents his characters as deeply informed by their contact with the cultural realm.Ellis' preoccupations with popular and consumer cultures, with the increasingly invasive mass media, and with a visually oriented society obsessed with surfaces, are all examined in the light of how these cultures are radically entangled with the consciousness and behaviour of his characters. In Ellis' fiction, the banal and the sensational are lucrative fixtures of a culture that functions as a commercial industry, driven by profit like any other, that exploits the desires and expectations of its consumers. Moreover, these common representations and modes of expression are presented as contagious, seeping into personal modes of self-expression. Just as Ellis instances how culture rigorously shapes the body and lifestyle, he also demonstrates through the stylized consciousness of his characters the media's powerful influence on their subjectivity and behaviour. This thesis focuses on American psycho (1991) but also discusses Ellis' other novels Less than zero (1984), The rules of attraction (1987), and The informers (1994).
39
Flory, Alexander [Verfasser]. ""Out is in" : Bret Easton Ellis und die Postmoderne / vorgelegt von Alexander Flory". 2006. http://d-nb.info/982481543/34.
Testo completo
40
Sheikh, Nabeela. "Missing-in-action : the American cipher in Bret Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland". Thèse, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1866/17581.
Testo completo
41
Pereira, Cristina Santos. "Raymond Carver e Bret Easton Ellis : paisagens ficcionais emergentes de um “newly envisioned world"". Master's thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/551.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Dissertação de Mestrado em Estudos Americanos apresentada à Universidade AbertaAssistimos a uma multiplicidade de desafios lançada por esta nova era de finais do século XX: a inconsistência de uma sociedade mediatizada, os instantes fragmentários, a alienação individual, a coexistência constante com a ambiguidade, a ausência da melhor solução, em soma, os próprios questionamentos existenciais e sociais. A leitura da ficção de Raymond Carver e Bret Easton Ellis implica a veiculação do seu newly envisioned world, no qual os fragmentos do real são combinados enquanto construto consensual da experiência empírica. Ambos forjam um sentido diferente da identidade americana, produzindo uma variedade de perspectivas sobre o quadro contemporâneo através dos vários possíveis minimalismos que remetem para uma qualidade ou modo de experiência. Carver procura o sentido das palavras e das coisas no espaço doméstico, reflectindo o género do conto uma condição essencial da nossa era moderna, do nosso sentido de marginalidade no mundo e da nossa percepção, frequentemente ténue, de nós próprios. Por sua vez, Ellis oferece uma visão de um mundo subjugado por uma cultura cada vez mais comodificada, reencontrando-se capaz de reconhecer as jactâncias e as contradições desta nova era, dando lugar a uma reavaliação das lógicas desse quotidiano
On assiste à une multiplicité de défis lancée par cette nouvelle ère de la fin du XXème siècle: l´inconsistance d´une société médiatisée, les instants fragmentaires, l´aliénation individuelle, la coexistence constante avec l´ambiguïté, l´absence de la meilleure solution, en somme, les propres questionnements existentiels et sociaux. La lecture de la fiction de Raymond Carver et Bret Easton Ellis implique le véhicule de leur newly envisioned world, dont les fragments du réel sont combinés en tant que construction consensuelle de l´expérience empirique. Tous deux forgent un sens différent de l´identité américaine, produisant une variété de perspectives concernant le cadre contemporain à travers des divers possibles minimalismes qui renvoient à une qualité ou mode d´expérience. Carver cherche le sens des mots et des choses dans l´espace domestique, reflétant le genre du conte une condition essentielle de notre ère moderne, de notre sens de marginalité dans le monde et de notre perception, fréquemment ténue, de nous-mêmes. De son côté, Ellis offre une vision d´un monde soumis à une culture où rien n´est gratuit, se rencontrant capable de reconnaître les jactances et les contradictions de cette nouvelle ère, donnant lieu à une réévaluation des logiques de ce quotidien
Abstract - At present, we attend a multiplicity of challenges made by the late 20th century era: an inconsistency of a media society, fragmentary moments, the individual’s alienation, a constant coexistence with ambiguity, the absence of the best solution, to sum up, the very existential and social questionings. The reading of Raymond Carver’s and Ellis’s fiction implies the consideration of their newly envisioned world. Here the fragments of the real are combined, building up a consensual picture of the empiric experience. Both shape a different American identity, putting forward a variety of perspectives about the contemporary scene through the different possible minimalisms which are linked to a quality or mode of experience. Carver looks for the meaning of the words and things in the domestic sphere. In his case, the short story mirrors an essential condition of our time, of our sense of marginality in the world and of our quite often tenuous perception of ourselves. Ellis, on his turn, offers the vision of a world subdued by a more and more comodified culture, being able to recognise the display and contradictions of this new era, opening up a reassessment of its logic
42
Messier, Vartan P. "Canons of transgression : shock, scandal, and subversion from Matthew Lewis' The Monk to Bret Easton Ellis' American psycho /". 2004. http://grad.uprm.edu/tesis/messiervartan.pdf.
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Gauthier, Joëlle. "Au coeur de The rules of attraction de Bret Easton Ellis : pragmatique de la communication et "descente dans le chaos"". Mémoire, 2010. http://www.archipel.uqam.ca/3880/1/M11902.pdf.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
Le projet d'écriture de Bret Easton Ellis constitue un point aveugle dans l'horizon critique actuel. Pour pallier ce manque, nous nous penchons dans ce mémoire sur l'esthétique pragmatique particulièrement complexe (ou « scrappy », selon la définition de Barbara Herrnstein Smith; 1988) du personnage et de la communication chez Ellis afin de définir son projet d'écriture comme expérience de « descente dans le chaos », expression développée par Maria L. Assad (1991) à partir des réflexions de Thomas M. Kavanagh (1986) sur Les cinq sens de Michel Serres (1985). Pour ce faire, nous proposons une micro-lecture attentive du deuxième roman d'Ellis, The Rules of Attraction (1987), suivie d'un bref retour sur les cinq autres romans de l'auteur. Afin d'effectuer notre micro-lecture, nous avons mis sur pied une grille de lecture construite à l'aide des théories de la pragmatique de la communication et de l'identité empruntées aux sciences sociales, en nous concentrant essentiellement sur les pratiques narratives de l'identité et les états problématiques de la communication. Cette grille a été appliquée au roman grâce au logiciel d'analyse de discours NVivo 8 (approche de codification vivante). Les résultats obtenus ont été interprétés à partir d'une approche libre inspirée des études littéraires et largement informée par les théories des chaoticiens. Cela nous permet de montrer comment il est possible de faire appel à la pragmatique des personnages pour saisir leurs textures différenciées. Il apparaît alors que la pragmatique du personnage ellisien participe d'une esthétique disjonctive de la communication qui se répercute sur l'esthétique générale du texte comme « descente dans le chaos ». L'étude des autres aspects du roman d'Ellis (métadiscours, incipit et excipit, exergue, titre) vient confirmer l'influence des « chaotiques » (Hayles, 1991) sur le projet d'écriture ellisien, point de départ pour repenser The Rules of Attraction comme un jalon important dans le développement d'une écriture et d'une œuvre qui exploitent les possibilités narratives et culturelles du chaos.
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MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Ellis Bret Easton, The Rules of Attraction, Pragmatique, Théorie du personnage, Chaos
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Knight, Mary Leslie. "Sympathy for the Devil: Volatile Masculinities in Recent German and American Literatures". Diss., 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10161/3830.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This study investigates how an ambivalence surrounding men and masculinity has been expressed and exploited in Pop literature since the late 1980s, focusing on works by German-speaking authors Christian Kracht and Benjamin Lebert and American author Bret Easton Ellis. I compare works from the United States with German and Swiss novels in order to reveal the scope - as well as the national particularities - of these troubled gender identities and what it means in the context of recent debates about a "crisis" in masculinity in Western societies. My comparative work will also highlight the ways in which these particular literatures and cultures intersect, invade, and influence each other.
In this examination, I demonstrate the complexity and success of the critical projects subsumed in the works of three authors too often underestimated by intellectual communities. At the same time, I reveal the very structure and language of these critical projects as a safe haven for "male fantasies" of gender difference and identity formation long relegated to the distant past, fantasies that continue to lurk within our cultural currencies.
Dissertation
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Personn, Tim. "Fictions of proximity: the Wallace Nexus in contemporary literature". Thesis, 2018. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca//handle/1828/9886.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
This dissertation studies a group of contemporary Anglo-American novelists who contribute to the development of a new humanism after the postmodern critique of Euro-American culture. As such, these writers respond to positions in twentieth-century philosophy that converge in a call for silence which has an ontological as well as ethical valence: as a way of rigorously thinking the ‘outside’ to language, it avoids charges of metaphysical inauthenticity; as an ethical stance in the wake of the Shoah, it eschews a complicity with the reifications of modern culture. How to reconcile this post-metaphysical promise with the politico-aesthetic inadequacy of speechlessness is the central question for this nexus of novelists—David Markson, Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith—at the center of which the study locates Wallace as a key figure of contemporary literature. By reconstructing the conversation among these authors, this dissertation argues that the nexus writers turn to indirect means of representation that do justice to the demand for silence in matters of metaphysics, but also gesture past it in the development of a neo-romantic aesthetics that invites the humanist category of the self back onto the scene after its dismissal by late postmodernism. The key to such indirection lies in an aporetic method that inspires explorations of metaphysical assumptions by seducing readers to an ambiguous site of aesthetic wonder; in conversation with a range of contemporary philosophers, the dissertation defines this affective site as a place of proximity, rather than absorption or detachment, which balances out the need for metaphysical distance with the productive desire for a fullness of experience. Such proximate aesthetic experiences continue the work of ‘doing metaphysics’ in post-metaphysical times by engaging our habitual responsiveness to the categories involved. Hence the novels discussed here stage limit cases of reason such as the unknowable world, the unreachable other, the absence of the self, and the unstable hierarchy between irony and sincerity: Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress imagines skepticism as literal abandonment and reminds us of our metaphysical indebtedness to a desired object/world; Ellis’s American Psycho shows the breakdown of communication due to a similarly skeptical vision of human interaction and presents a violence that tries to force a response from the desired subject/person; Wallace’s Infinite Jest creates a large canvas on which episodes of metaphysical and literal ‘stuckness’ afford possibilities for becoming human; Smith’s The Autograph Man, finally, pays attention to gestural language at the breaking point of materialism and theology, nature and culture, tragedy and comedy.Graduate
2020-08-01
46
Loughran, Colin. "American Impotence: Narratives of National Manhood in Postwar U.S. Literature". Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1807/42531.
Testo completoAbstract (sommario):
“American Impotence” investigates a continuity between literary representations of masculinity and considerations of national identity in the works of five postwar novelists. In particular, I illustrate the manner in which Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, John Updike’s Couples, Robert Coover’s The Public Burning, Joan Didion’s Democracy and The Last Thing He Wanted, and Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho challenge the patterns of daily life through which a single figure is imagined to be the essential agent of American polity: namely, the self-made individualist, characterized by manly virtues like dominance, aggression, ambition, mastery, vitality, and virility. More specifically, this project examines the manner in which the iconicity of men helps sustain a narrative of “imperilled masculinity” that at once privileges an impossible identity, situated in the representative nucleus of postwar democracy, and forecloses other modalities of political life. Observing the full meaning of the word “potency,” I elucidate the interrelationships between narrative forms, masculine norms, and democratic practice. Ellison’s work ties the maturation of African American boys to the impossibility of full participation in civic life, for instance, while in Updike’s Couples the contradictions of virile manhood manifest in the form of a fatalism that threatens to undo the carefully cultivated social boundaries of early sixties bohemianism; in a variety of ways, The Public Burning and American Psycho represent the iconic nature of masculinity as a psychic threat to those men closest to it, while Didion’s female protagonists find themselves flirting with the promises of a secret agency linked to imperial adventures in Southeast Asia and Central America. In the cultural context of the Cold War, these novelists demonstrate how intensified participation in national fantasies of potency and virility is inevitably disempowering; as an alternative, this dissertation seeks to consider impotence as dissensus detached from the mandates of hegemonic masculinity.
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Kuon, Ludwig [Verfasser]. "René Girard und die Wahrheit des Romans : der mimetische Konflikt als Handlungsschema in den Romanen von Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (1991), Michel Houellebecq, Elementarteilchen (1996), und Vladimir Sorokin, Der himmelblaue Speck (1999) / vorgelegt von Kuon, Ludwig". 2006. http://d-nb.info/980698979/34.
Testo completo