american conquest divided nation wiseupdt

Like Ellison's narrator, this alternative has remained largely invisible, despite its very real difference from its dominant counterpart, for many of the same reasons the narrator could not be seen by members of the dominant white culture. An alternative to (post)modernism in fact emerges at precisely the same aesthetic moment that the dominant or reflexive form of postmodernism does, in one of its key texts: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Such an alternative has already emerged at many points in the development of that literature, only to be misrecognized and recuperated within the dominant mode of reflexive postmodern writing by critics who have apparently been too dazzled by the postmodern and post-structural 'ruptures' to see clearly.

This study attempts to articulate an alternative to the dialectic of modernism and postmodernism, or (post)modernism for short, that dominates many discussions of American literature in the contemporary period. 'Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted' Among the many who heard evasions, rehearsals, and revisions of the arguments herein, Luke Carson, Roxanne Eberle, and Colleen Jaurretche have surely put up longest with my vacillations and have done so with admirable restraint and good humor. They watched me back into the project, just as they are now watching me back out the other side of it. The contributions of my comrades in arms-those who passed through graduate school with me-to this book have in many cases spanned as many years as I've known them. Don't blame them for the obscurities and errors that remain. Jeffrey Nealon and Steven Shaviro, referees for the University of California Press, offered helpful suggestions for clarification, for which I thank them. I would also like to affirm my gratitude to my original chair, the late Joe Riddel, whose goodwill and encouragement allowed me to get this project under way in the first place. Toni Negri has no doubt forgotten the spontaneous remarks he made in reaction to my underdeveloped theses in the fall of 1991, but those remarks and the paper I wrote in response to them were the true seeds of this book.

Sam Weber and Peter Wollen also gave me crucial advice and encouragement during that long march to the doctorate. I owe my most profound intellectual debts to my committee chair, Vince Pecora, who never misses a trick, avoids a debate, or pulls a punch yet somehow manages to assure his students of the value of their achievements, and to Ken Reinhard, who is as profligate in his interests as he is in his generosity.

American conquest divided nation wiseupdt