Litteraturkritik, fankultur og affekt: Trump og Pynchons konspirationslæsere

Trump og Pynchons konspirationslæsere

Forfattere

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/kok.v47i128.118033

Nøgleord:

Donald Trump, Thomas Pynchon, USA, konspirationsteori, kulturstudier, fanstudier, litteraturkritik, tekstanalyse

Resumé

This article outlines the two cultures in the study of conspiracy culture, where social science disciplines provide one type of approach and cultural studies another. To make a claim for recovering the use of literature in the field, both to bridge the divide, if possible, and to suggest new critical directions for literary studies itself, the article offers a reading of two congruent conspiracy narrations, Donald Trump’s rhetoric and Thomas Pynchon’s novels. Both are examples of ambiguous narration, which may be taken at face value by one reader and invested with hidden significance by another, thus creating two closed-off epistemic bubbles – politically and critically. When critics have not been taking conspiracy fans, which could include esteemed literary figures like Pynchon, seriously, they have been guilty of closed reading. Fans themselves, though equally closed readers technically, offer avenues into affective and co-creative conspiracy readings which are, paradoxically, open to the reparative possibilities literature can have in a politically paranoid society.

Forfatterbiografi

Inger H. Dalsgaard, Aarhus Universitet

Inger H. Dalsgaard, PhD. Fra King’s College, University of London og MIT, lektor i Amerikanske Studier ved Afdeling for Engelsk, Institut for Kommunikation og Kultur, Aarhus Universitet. Har i mange år udgivet om Thomas Pynchon, især sammenhængen mellem litteratur, kultur, teknologi og videnskab. Hun har desuden redigeret Thomas Pynchon in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) og, med Luc Herman og Brian McHale, The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Denne artikel trækker på viden fra et af hendes andre forskningsfelter, retorisk kommunikation og magt omkring det amerikanske præsidentembede.

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Publiceret

2020-01-02

Citation/Eksport

Dalsgaard, I. H. (2020). Litteraturkritik, fankultur og affekt: Trump og Pynchons konspirationslæsere: Trump og Pynchons konspirationslæsere. K&K - Kultur Og Klasse, 47(128), 83–104. https://doi.org/10.7146/kok.v47i128.118033