| dc.description.abstract | Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay “The End of History” argues that at the turn of the millennium, the Western neoliberal ideals of economic liberty, free market capitalism, and individual reason have triumphed over all other economic, political, and social systems. In recent years, the term neoliberalism along with the economic policies of late 1970s and 1980s have received significant critical attention. This project will directly engage with, and push back on, Fukuyama’s thesis that neoliberal policies of freedom, individualism, and egalitarianism ushered in some form of late capitalist utopia in the waning years of the twentieth century. Using Fredric Jameson’s theories of the intensification of capital into all areas of cultural production, I intend to show how three novels during the 1990s—specifically American Psycho, Fight Club, and Blonde— each function as an experimental, postmodern attempt to address, resist, and engage with the intensification of neoliberalism at the end of the century. My goal here is not to transcribe Jameson’s methods onto these three texts, but rather employ his style of analysis—the need for a new cognitive map or a new style of consciousness—to show how the speed, complexity, diversity, and saturation of late capitalism’s cultural production is disorienting to the individual agent. These three novels each explore themes of alienation, isolation, and exploitation and how the neoliberal, utopian ideals of infinite progress and universal truth are dangerous to the individual and destructive to social cohesion. | en_US |
