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Chapter 3 - Post-political Form

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2022

Ryan M. Brooks
Affiliation:
West Texas A&M University
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Summary

In this chapter, I show how Richard Powers’s 1998 novel Gain symbolically resolves the conflict between transnational corporate “stakeholders” and shareholders. In this way, the novel reveals what is already implicit in such “non-governmental” movements as “stakeholder activism,” which flourished during the 1990s in response to the rise of transnational corporations and right-wing critiques of the state. These non-governmental movements imagine a political field structured not by antagonism but by a plurality of interests, and they assume that these interests can be recognized and coordinated by a government (elected or corporate) that can somehow stand outside this realm of interests. I conclude this chapter by contrasting Gain’s post-political vision, as I call it, with that of Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt (2006), a novel about a “nomenclature consultant” hired to rename a small town. The novel’s resolution stages a rejection of the impulse to allow profitability to drive governance, and the discordant historical name selected by the protagonist — “Struggle” — also names the very thing hidden by corporate governance and non-governmental politics.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Post-political Form
  • Ryan M. Brooks
  • Book: Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era
  • Online publication: 16 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019040.004
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  • Post-political Form
  • Ryan M. Brooks
  • Book: Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era
  • Online publication: 16 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019040.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Post-political Form
  • Ryan M. Brooks
  • Book: Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era
  • Online publication: 16 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019040.004
Available formats
×