Dark Affinities, Dark Imaginaries

Joseph Natoli

Description

Uniting personal history with cultural history, Dark Affinities, Dark Imaginaries tells a story of a mind, a time, and a culture. The vehicle or medium of this excursion is an overview and sampling of the author's work, and what is revealed are cautionary tales of a once-aspiring egalitarian democracy confronted with plutocracy's gentrification; of analog history and off-line life superseded by a rush toward virtualized, robotic, AI transformation of the human life-world; of everything social and public giving way to everything personal and opinionated. The vagaries of a lifetime of paths taken are woven together by a narrative that reveals in every piece a significance that was only partially present at its initial writing. Thus, the reader becomes involved in a developing story of a certain personal psyche working toward understanding its own development within a changing American culture. Sometimes angry, sometimes joyful, but always curious and wry, Joseph Natoli crosses the boundary lines of psychology, politics, literature, philosophy, education, and economics to show how we bring ourselves and our cultural imaginaries simultaneously into being through the processes and pleasures of thinking beyond the confines of the personal.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. William Blake: Prophet against Empire
Introduction, Twentieth-Century Blake Criticism: Northrop Frye to the Present
Excerpt from Mots d’Ordre: Disorder in Literary Worlds
Why Are We Not Roused to Action?

2. A Patient Appears at the Psychiatrist’s Office: The Turn to Phenomenological Psychopathology
Dark Affinities: The Father
Phenomenological Psychology and Literary Interpretation
The Code of Crisis and Disaster

3. The World Is a Book
Textual Studies and the Selection of Editions
Meditating on a Postmodern Strategy of Reading
Endless Deferment: The Inequitable Melee of Events and Words

4. Looking for Disorder in Literary Worlds
Mapping the Inconceivable: Disordering Taxonomies

5. Postmodernity Is a Hoot
Go to Citizen Kane to Find Twentieth-Century Modernism: On the Edge of Postmodernity
The Deep Morals of Inglourious Basterds

6. At the Theory Carnival
Preface to Tracing Literary Theory
Preface to Literary Theory’s Future(s)

7. Into the American Mass Psyche of the Nineties
Hauntings: Popular Film and American Culture
Hunting the Haunted Heart
Speeding to the Millennium: Film and Culture 1993 –1995
Court and Culture: The Days of Our Life with O. J.
Postmodern Journeys: Film and Culture 1996 –1998
That Rug Really Tied the Room Together
Memory’s Orbit: Film and Culture 1999 –2000
After September 11, 2001
Hearing the Ping of Poverty—or Not

8. Railing through Europe: “Is This a Postmodern World?” 1995 –2010
This Is a Picture and Not the World

9. A Long Journey to Find an Online Political Home
Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project
Political Affairs: “From each according to his ability to each according to their work”
Why the Rich Get Richer and Other Truth Stories
Bad Subjects: Politics in Everyday Life
The Leftist Psyche
The “Free Exchange of Ideas”: Our New Normal
Counterpunching
Gun Control, Illegal Aliens, Moochers, Planned Parenthood, Gay Marriages, “Big Brother” Government, and Obama

10. Popular Culture: What I Did at the Movies
Doing the American Hustle
The Hateful Eight: History’s Dark Bounty

11. I Roam into TV: Rebel Sons, Foodies, DBs, TV Pharmacy, and Sports
TV’s Rebel Sons: The Anger of Deep Revolt
Autopsy TV
Food TV
The Emergence of Greater-than-Human Sports…and Baseball

12. Dark Affinities
Dark Affinities: Liberal and Neoliberal
The Economics of Immiseration/The Politics of Seduction
US Higher Education: The New “Treasure Island” for Investors
Plutocracy, Gentrification, and Racial Violence

13. Dark Imaginaries
What Climate Scenarios Do We Imagine?
A Modest Proposal, 2014
The Coming Transformation of Work to Leisure
The American Middle Class: The Political Chosen People?

14. Portrait of Generation Next
To Gaga Is to Dada
The Twitter Moment
Living Backward: The Millennials’ Alice
Our Millennial Age of Magic

15. Occupy Wall Street
Epilogue to the Kindle Publication of Occupying Here & Now: The New Class Warfare
Psychomachia: Battles within the American Cultural Psyche

16. Travels of a New Gulliver
In Which the Author Introduces Himself and Then Sets Out
The Author Is Admitted to the Academy, Inhabited by Enormous-Headed Giants; Visits the Wick, the
Great Augury, and The Singularity Club; Meets a Terrorist, and Then Ends Badly
The Author Comes to the End of His Travels

Biblio

Sujets

• Película fotográfica
• Popular culture
• Visual culture
• History of film
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 17 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438463520
• Langue: English

Extrait

Dark Affinities, Dark Imaginaries
Dark Affinities, Dark Imaginaries
A M IND ’ S O DYSSEY
JOSEPH NATOLI
Cover image: Joseph Phillip Natoli, “Yellow Barque,” oil on canvas, 15" × 18", 2014
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 Joseph Natoli
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Jenn Bennett
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Natoli, Joseph P., 1943– author.
Title: Dark affinities, dark imaginaries : a mind’s odyssey / Joseph Natoli.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016021629 (print) | LCCN 2016036363 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438463513 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438463520 (e-book)
Classification: LCC AC8.5 .N38 2017 (print) | LCC AC8.5 (ebook) | DDC 814/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021629
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Maybe the space of exile is one of the few spaces left in neoliberal societies where one can cultivate a sense of meaningful connections, solidarity and engaged citizenship. Exile may be the space where a kind of double consciousness can be cultivated that points beyond the structures of domination and repression to what the poet Claudia Rankine calls a new understanding of community, politics and citizenship in which the social contract is revived as a kind of truce in which we allow ourselves to be flawed together.
—Henry Giroux, “Academic Madness and the Politics of Exile,” Truthout, November 18, 2014
Contents
P REFACE
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NTRODUCTION
C HAPTER O NE
William Blake: Prophet against Empire
Introduction, Twentieth-Century Blake Criticism: Northrop Frye to the Present
Excerpt from Mots d’Ordre: Disorder in Literary Worlds
Why Are We Not Roused to Action?
C HAPTER T WO
A Patient Appears at the Psychiatrist’s Office: The Turn to Phenomenological Psychopathology
Dark Affinities: The Father
Phenomenological Psychology and Literary Interpretation
The Code of Crisis and Disaster
C HAPTER T HREE
The World Is a Book
Textual Studies and the Selection of Editions
Meditating on a Postmodern Strategy of Reading
Endless Deferment: The Inequitable Melee of Events and Words
C HAPTER F OUR
Looking for Disorder in Literary Worlds
Mapping the Inconceivable: Disordering Taxonomies
C HAPTER F IVE
Postmodernity Is a Hoot
Go to Citizen Kane to Find Twentieth-Century Modernism: On the Edge of Postmodernity
The Deep Morals of Inglourious Basterds
C HAPTER S IX
At the Theory Carnival
Preface to Tracing Literary Theory
Preface to Literary Theory’s Future(s)
C HAPTER S EVEN
Into the American Mass Psyche of the Nineties
Hauntings: Popular Film and American Culture
Hunting the Haunted Heart
Speeding to the Millennium: Film and Culture 1993–1995
Court and Culture: The Days of Our Life with O. J.
Postmodern Journeys: Film and Culture 1996–1998
That Rug Really Tied the Room Together
Memory’s Orbit: Film and Culture 1999–2000
After September 11, 2001
Hearing the Ping of Poverty—or Not
C HAPTER E IGHT
Railing through Europe: “Is This a Postmodern World?” 1995–2010
This Is a Picture and Not the World
C HAPTER N INE
A Long Journey to Find an Online Political Home
Truthout ’s Public Intellectual Project
Political Affairs : “From each according to his ability to each according to their work”
Why the Rich Get Richer and Other Truth Stories
Bad Subjects: Politics in Everyday Life
The Leftist Psyche
The “Free Exchange of Ideas”: Our New Normal
Counterpunching
Gun Control, Illegal Aliens, Moochers, Planned Parenthood, Gay Marriages, “Big Brother” Government, and Obama
C HAPTER T EN
Popular Culture: What I Did at the Movies
Doing the American Hustle
The Hateful Eight : History’s Dark Bounty
C HAPTER E LEVEN
I Roam into TV: Rebel Sons, Foodies, DBs, TV Pharmacy, and Sports
TV’s Rebel Sons: The Anger of Deep Revolt
Autopsy TV
Food TV
The Emergence of Greater-than-Human Sports … and Baseball
C HAPTER T WELVE
Dark Affinities
Dark Affinities: Liberal and Neoliberal
The Economics of Immiseration/The Politics of Seduction
US Higher Education: The New “Treasure Island” for Investors
Plutocracy, Gentrification, and Racial Violence
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
Dark Imaginaries
What Climate Scenarios Do We Imagine?
A Modest Proposal, 2014
The Coming Transformation of Work to Leisure
The American Middle Class: The Political Chosen People?
C HAPTER F OURTEEN
Portrait of Generation Next
To Gaga Is to Dada
The Twitter Moment
Living Backward: The Millennials’ Alice
Our Millennial Age of Magic
C HAPTER F IFTEEN
Occupy Wall Street
Epilogue to the Kindle Publication of Occupying Here Now: The New Class Warfare
Psychomachia: Battles within the American Cultural Psyche
C HAPTER S IXTEEN
Travels of a New Gulliver
In Which the Author Introduces Himself and Then Sets Out
The Author Is Admitted to the Academy, Inhabited by Enormous-Headed Giants; Visits the Wick, the Great Augury, and The Singularity Club; Meets a Terrorist, and Then Ends Badly
The Author Comes to the End of His Travels
B IBLIOGRAPHY
I NDEX
Preface
You could say that the wily Odysseus’s will to reach home could not be overcome by any arrangement of Chance or others—Sirens and Cyclops included. I would call this a millennial reading, one emerging from a readership encouraged by their own personal will and freedom to choose their own destiny. The Odyssey I read is rather different. It is one in which forces and conditions outside Odysseus’s power to control, circumstances that Chance and others create that he must reckon with, shape both the choosing and the chooser. We become more than what we personally design ourselves to be, and that more very often means that we become less than we designed.
One of the wonders of cyberspace is that it offers us an alternative world within which we can pursue a politics that meets our own preferences, reduce society and the social dimension of life to friends we choose, pursue answers on Google to all our questions—but not very often to questions that exceed our own liking, interest, or erudition. Why wouldn’t Odysseus now stand as an exemplar of that knowledge of The Secret, which tells us that if you will something strongly enough, the entire universe will conspire to fulfill your wishes?
My mind’s odyssey over the past half century did not remain true to a charted course I had proposed long ago. What I call “my mind,” at every stage reacted and reorganized itself according to what time, geography, and Chance put before it. There was no rudder pushing a personal will through all waters on an undeviating passage. My mind now is like a painter’s palette that over time reveals where the brush has been, or like carved rock formations in tide pools, which are the shape they are because of wind, sun, rain, and the ebbing and flowing of the ocean’s mighty force. When you scan the physiognomy of a mind, you see countless encounters with a culture within which that mind is embedded so that any retelling of the odyssey of that mind is, at the same time, a revelation of a culture. In my case, that is US culture, which we arrogantly call “American,” although the fact that I was raised in an Italian-American community in Brooklyn, a bilingual community in which neither English nor Italian were schooled, fashioned affiliations in many things, which were far from the American cultural norm.
My own father was born in the United States, but through odd circumstances—I call it the play of Chance—was educated in Sicily and returned to the United States as a teenager; and so the entire immigrant-family experience was mine, transmitted through my father. There is a certain subaltern psychology that develops, preconditioning the mind toward skepticism and even dissent. On a dark imaginary level, the Jewish Algerian Jacques Derrida was always deconstructing the French social order of things that marginalized him. The appearance of a Derrida at a certain moment is an exposition of a culture at a certain moment. The whole notion of a coherent, autonomous, and controlling subjectivity contends with the notion that we are variously positioned within the circumstances of our surround and no account of my mind can mean anything without reference to this.
The discipline to apply what brains I had came from the surround, as my father and my uncles encouraged me from early age to do well in school and grasp an opportunity denied to them. And so an intention-less intelligence was directed toward academic success. At Brooklyn College, I came under the influence of Jewish intellectuals who had escaped the Holocaust. History, politics, and economics were represented not as neutral social sciences