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(Modern) Detroit-as-experience: Understanding Joyce Carol Oates's "them"
Title
(Modern) Detroit-as-experience: Understanding Joyce Carol Oates's "them".
Creator
Houser, Tai Lynden, Florida Atlantic University, Faraci, Mary
Abstract/Description
Joyce Carol Oates's novel them and Wallace Stevens's poetry can be examined in light of Oates's critical essay "Against Nature." These fictions illustrate Oates's idea of Nature not existing as a noun, Nature, but as an experience which we attempt to understand through language. Indirectly, Oates calls on other authors and theorists to argue for a redefinition of Nature. She comes to conclude that what we call "Nature" in reality exists as Nature-as-experience. Once we fully understand Nature...
Show moreJoyce Carol Oates's novel them and Wallace Stevens's poetry can be examined in light of Oates's critical essay "Against Nature." These fictions illustrate Oates's idea of Nature not existing as a noun, Nature, but as an experience which we attempt to understand through language. Indirectly, Oates calls on other authors and theorists to argue for a redefinition of Nature. She comes to conclude that what we call "Nature" in reality exists as Nature-as-experience. Once we fully understand Nature-as-experience, we can utilize those principles to understand a relatively new occurrence in history and literature: the manmade city. In them, the city, in much the same way as Nature, becomes City-as-experience and in fact lives in the experience of the character Maureen.
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Date Issued
2003
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13011
Subject Headings
Oates, Joyce Carol,--1938---Them, Detroit (Mich)--In literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Mind the Gap: Overcoming Dualities in Motor City, USA
Title
Mind the Gap: Overcoming Dualities in Motor City, USA.
Creator
Houser, Tai Lynden, Blakemore, Steven, Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description
Contemporary thinking, bound as it is to a dualistic paradigm, inherently privileges one side of the duality over the other. Feminists - most notably in this dissertation, Val Plumwood - argue that we must overcome these privileged dualities and reconstruct a way of knowing that recognizes difference while not granting privilege to one side or the other. Dualities result from the modernist and postmodernist desire to name and control. One of the reasons that we cannot transcend this desire is...
Show moreContemporary thinking, bound as it is to a dualistic paradigm, inherently privileges one side of the duality over the other. Feminists - most notably in this dissertation, Val Plumwood - argue that we must overcome these privileged dualities and reconstruct a way of knowing that recognizes difference while not granting privilege to one side or the other. Dualities result from the modernist and postmodernist desire to name and control. One of the reasons that we cannot transcend this desire is because we have lost our connection to our environment. Examining novels and films set in Detroit, Michigan, as well as coming to terms with that city's history, will allow us to find places where clairvoyant messengers can commune with the environment and offer us an insight into ways of overcoming the radical "othering" ofduality. This project begins by examining the literary history of urban fiction in the United States and pointing to the tradition of duality and some of its surface problems. Then, the project begins to construct a history of Detroit that exposes the complex layers of duality that have informed the city's growth and ultimately led to the 1967 riots. Next, the argument suggests the importance of fiction and film in understanding modern dualities. The first fictive example, Maureen, from Joyce Carol Oates's novel them is an example of a potential clairvoyant. However, bound as she is to a postmodern existence, Maureen experiences her "other'' but fails to provide a didactic example of non-dualistic thinking. Ultimately, postmodernism and postmodern/post riot Detroit only mystify and compound the problems associated with modern dualities. Likewise, Jeffrey Eugenides transgendered hero/ine Calliope (Middlesex) experiences her natural "other" and allows us to call into question the traditional binaries we use to create our understandings of gender. Both characters retell their experience and re-present their bodies in an attempt to bridge dualities and overcome their "otherness." Finally, the dissertation finds a representation of contemporary Detroit, Eminem's 8 Mile, and argues that violence and shame are at the root of dualities and ultimately distract us from overcoming both fictional and real examples of the oppressive "othering" which results from a culture steeped in dualistic thinking.
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Date Issued
2008
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000984
Subject Headings
Detroit (Mich)--In literature, Detroit (Mich)--History--21st century--Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Postmodernism--Psychological aspects, Philosophy of nature
Format
Document (PDF)