Reading Capitalist Realism

272 Pages·2014·1.398 MB·English

by  La Berge, Leigh Claire, Shonkwiler, Alison

Reading Capitalist Realism
The New American Canon
The Iowa Series in Contemporary Literature and Culture
samuel cohen
, series editor
Reading Capitalist Realism
Edited by
alison shonkwiler & leigh claire la berge
University of Iowa Press Iowa City
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2014 by the University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org
Printed in the United States of America
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Printed on acid-free paper
ISBN: 978-1-60938-234-6, 1-60938-234-X (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-60938-263-6, 1-60938-263-3 (ebk.)
LCCN: 2013952707
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
alison shonkwiler & leigh claire la berge
Introduction: A Theory of Capitalist Realism 1
jodi dean and mark fisher
We Can’t Afford to Be Realists: A Conversation 26
Part I Novelistic Realisms
andrew hoberek
Adultery, Crisis, Contract 41
alissa g. karl
Things Break Apart: James Kelman, Ali Smith, and the
Neoliberal Novel 64
phillip e. wegner
Things As They Were or Are: On Russell Banks’s Global
Realisms 89
Part II Genres of Mediation
leigh claire la berge
Capitalist Realism and Serial Form: The Fifth Season
of The Wire 115
j. d. connor
Like Some Dummy Corporation You Just Move around the
Board: Contemporary Hollywood Production in Virtual
Time and Space 140
caren irr
Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Realism in William T. Vollmann’s
Poor People 177
Part III After and Against Representation
michael w. clune
Beyond Realism 195
timothy bewes
Capitalism and Reification: The Logic of the Instance 213
joshua clover
Communist Realism 242
richard dienst
Afterword: Unreal Criticism 248
Contributors 255
Index 259
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank A. K. Summers for wit and argument, Franklin
Summers for the point of view of Franklin Summers, Elizabeth Free-
man for unstinting intellectual generosity, series editor Samuel Cohen
for enthusiasm and early support, Andrew Hoberek for timely coun-
sel, two manuscript readers for key interventions, and editor Elisabeth
Chretien for her patient assistance in guiding this book through publi-
cation. —A. S.
Like my co-editor, and for identical reasons, I would like to thank
two anonymous reviewers from the University of Iowa Press, together
with Samuel Cohen and Elisabeth Chretien. I would also like to thank
the Affective Publics group at The University of Chicago, my wonderful
New Faculty Speaker Series colleagues at Saint Mary’s University and
Dalhousie University, and finally, Dehlia Hannah, for using the phrase
“capitalist realism” in jest before I knew it was real. —L. C. L.

Reading Capitalist Realism