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Not of liquor, let me be clear. A fifth of my thirty-item 20th-c. American reading list, the six texts I've started metabolizing being The Souls of Black Folk, A Street in Bronzeville, The Waste Land, The Crying of Lot 49, The Great Gatsby, and Nightwood.
An unwieldy subset of an unwieldy list! I'm not sure I can make much of it so far in terms of capitalism, or much of capitalism in terms of my subset, but I should explain why I'm talking about capitalism at all. My examiner directed me to approach my reading list with themes already in mind: the idea is to start with certain themes and let them inform my reading, rather than to look for patterns after reading the list through. We brainstormed some themes by Zoom last week: capitalism and labor (conditions), representations of gender and race, aesthetics and theories of art (realism, naturalism, modernism), representations of "the folk" and uses of folklore (urban, traditional), regionalism and customs and beliefs, intellectual projects and aims, and finally representations of reality--these can be descriptive or prescriptive, they can be reflective on the one hand or, on the other, hint at amelioration, proposing ways to change the problems we face as a society.
Anyway, capitalism stood out to me. Representations of reality too: the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive approaches really strikes me. You might think of this distinction vis-à-vis another one, between optimism and pessimism. You might take the descriptive approach because you're in love with the way things are, but description may also be your mode if you are depressed by the way things are. If you are angry at the way things are you might take the prescriptive approach, but--crucially--that wouldn't necessarily mean you're pessimistic. If anything it means the opposite: would you be prescribing change and proposing ways toward it if you didn't believe it possible?
Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (though not, I've read, later in his life) believes change possible. Du Bois on Booker T. Washington is also Du Bois on capitalism, to some extent. I'm not sure A Street in Bronzeville is very citable in terms of capitalism; I have no idea what to make of The Waste Land in relation to capitalism--though the perfunctory sexual exchange between the typist and the young man carbuncular comes to mind, maybe because it's urban; The Crying of Lot 49 satirizes urban and suburban California and has a (dead) real estate mogul who amassed impossible wealth (though if I'm thinking about capitalism, one point is that under capitalism it's not impossible to amass enormous wealth); The Great Gatsby has Jay Gatsby's enormous wealth though seems overall more concerned with the class stratification capitalism exacerbates than with capitalism per se? At any rate it does have this passage, at one of Gatsby's parties:
Across the Atlantic are not only more Englishmen but also the Old World. Djuna Barnes was born and died in America but spent much of the twenties in Paris, and Nightwood though set partly in America is an Old World book, I think, but what exactly that has to do with capitalism or representations of reality is beyond me at the moment.
If I were the (drinking) type now might be a good time to seek out a fifth? My list is unwieldy and my themes are far bigger than my head. Anyway, I suppose the real point of making this post was just to lay out them out. So at least that's done!
An unwieldy subset of an unwieldy list! I'm not sure I can make much of it so far in terms of capitalism, or much of capitalism in terms of my subset, but I should explain why I'm talking about capitalism at all. My examiner directed me to approach my reading list with themes already in mind: the idea is to start with certain themes and let them inform my reading, rather than to look for patterns after reading the list through. We brainstormed some themes by Zoom last week: capitalism and labor (conditions), representations of gender and race, aesthetics and theories of art (realism, naturalism, modernism), representations of "the folk" and uses of folklore (urban, traditional), regionalism and customs and beliefs, intellectual projects and aims, and finally representations of reality--these can be descriptive or prescriptive, they can be reflective on the one hand or, on the other, hint at amelioration, proposing ways to change the problems we face as a society.
Anyway, capitalism stood out to me. Representations of reality too: the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive approaches really strikes me. You might think of this distinction vis-à-vis another one, between optimism and pessimism. You might take the descriptive approach because you're in love with the way things are, but description may also be your mode if you are depressed by the way things are. If you are angry at the way things are you might take the prescriptive approach, but--crucially--that wouldn't necessarily mean you're pessimistic. If anything it means the opposite: would you be prescribing change and proposing ways toward it if you didn't believe it possible?
Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (though not, I've read, later in his life) believes change possible. Du Bois on Booker T. Washington is also Du Bois on capitalism, to some extent. I'm not sure A Street in Bronzeville is very citable in terms of capitalism; I have no idea what to make of The Waste Land in relation to capitalism--though the perfunctory sexual exchange between the typist and the young man carbuncular comes to mind, maybe because it's urban; The Crying of Lot 49 satirizes urban and suburban California and has a (dead) real estate mogul who amassed impossible wealth (though if I'm thinking about capitalism, one point is that under capitalism it's not impossible to amass enormous wealth); The Great Gatsby has Jay Gatsby's enormous wealth though seems overall more concerned with the class stratification capitalism exacerbates than with capitalism per se? At any rate it does have this passage, at one of Gatsby's parties:
I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.
Across the Atlantic are not only more Englishmen but also the Old World. Djuna Barnes was born and died in America but spent much of the twenties in Paris, and Nightwood though set partly in America is an Old World book, I think, but what exactly that has to do with capitalism or representations of reality is beyond me at the moment.
If I were the (drinking) type now might be a good time to seek out a fifth? My list is unwieldy and my themes are far bigger than my head. Anyway, I suppose the real point of making this post was just to lay out them out. So at least that's done!