Fetishism and Its Discontents in Post-1960 American Fiction [Hardcover]

This study explores the concept of fetishism as a strategy for expressing social and political discontent in American literature, and for negotiating traumatic experiences particular to the second half of the twentieth century.PART I: FETISHISM FROM THEORY TO FICTION A Parallax History of Fetish Theory No Ideas but in Fetishes: Reed's Mumbo Jumbo PART II: FICTIONS OF THE FEMALE FETISH Queering Lesbian Fetishism in Pynchon's V. Resighting Gender Theory:?Butler's Lesbian Phallus in Acker's Pussy PART III: POMO-PORNOLOGIES Domesticating Fantasy: S/M Fetishism and Coover's Spanking the Maid Narrating the Death Drive:?Automotive S intho Mosexuality and John Hawkes's Travesty Conclusion: Longing on a Large Scale: Underworld and Europe Central

This is a smart, incisive critical elaboration of thinking on fetishism across an impressive range of theoretical and fictional texts. Christopher Kocela adroitly argues both sides of the parallax view on fetishism - the jouissance of the fetishist, and the pleasures of signification in the theorist s quest for meaning. Reminding us that the very notion of fetishism emerged in Western thinking through the stories of traders in the European-African encounter of the fifteenth century, Kocela persuasively contrasts that initial encounter narrative with how post-1960 American fiction opens up new imaginative approaches to interpreting not only sexual politics of fetishism but the very limits on Enlightenment thinking. Teasing apart how theories of fetishism have become conflated with telling a certain story about fetishism, Kocela s lucid, robust, and engaging readings conclusively demonstrate the theorizing power of fiction as well as the narrative force of theory. - E. L. McCallum, Associate Professor of English, Michigan State University

This lively and original study of fetishism in post-1960 American fiction is noteworthy for its ambitious scope, scrupulous research, cultural timeliness, and striking insl.