Of Ghosts and Justice: Spectral Politics in 20th-Century U.S. Literature

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dc.contributor.advisorAranda, José F.en_US
dc.creatorStoeltje, Samen_US
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-24T20:49:44Zen_US
dc.date.available2023-05-24T20:49:44Zen_US
dc.date.created2023-05en_US
dc.date.issued2023-04-19en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2023en_US
dc.date.updated2023-05-24T20:49:45Zen_US
dc.description.abstract“Of Ghosts and Justice: Spectral Politics in 20th-Century U.S. Literature” attends to the representation of the spectral in transgeneric literary works, at the same time resignifying and retheorizing the term “spectral” to include its ostensive “literal” referent, that is, the ontologically and epistemologically and ontically impossible within modern and post-modern discursive cultures. Following but departing from Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, this dissertation locates moments of non-dominant and abject(ed) metaphysics as they emerge in generically uncertain texts, and seeks to understand these moments in relation to struggles for justice at personal, institutional, and geopolitical scales: struggles against capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy, cis/hetero/patriarchy, ecological violence, as well as the more abstract violence of epistemological genre-making. Bringing Derridean deconstruction together with decolonial theories, specifically theories of genre by Jodi Byrd and cosmogonic intellectual history from Sylvia Wynter, I attempt through my readings to “let the spirit speak” and to listen from a position of genuine onto/epistemological openness. The primary texts include Black Elk and John Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks, literary-ethnographic writing by Carlos Castaneda and Zora Neale Hurston, the autotheory-practice of Gloria Anzaldúa, and an unknown work of channeled literature from the 1970s, The Great Adventure: A Handbook for Living in this World and on the Other Side, written by and through my departed friend Alice Neihardt Thompson. Through reading these texts, some of the complex mythopoetics underpinning U.S. literature come into focus, including interrelations between the Frontier and Spiritualism, coloniality and anthropology, appropriation, queer feminism, psychedelic countercultures, as well as Indigenous and African-diasporic cultures of belief. Interweaving autoethnography and other transgeneric praxes, the dissertation arrives at a conviction of the importance of onto/epistemological openness in reading U.S. literature. Encountering these strange, metaphysically abject and uncanny texts, I note that spectral literatures are a practice of myth-making and re-making, and that such makings are full of political potential and peril. Given that myth is defined by its claim to sacredness, transcendence, and a position of being beyond critique, I close with a meditation on the (im)possible necessity of cultivating a mythocritique and its relation to academic writing.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationStoeltje, Sam. "Of Ghosts and Justice: Spectral Politics in 20th-Century U.S. Literature." (2023) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/114888">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/114888</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/114888en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectU.S. Literatureen_US
dc.subjectReligious Studiesen_US
dc.subjectLiterary Theoryen_US
dc.subjectDeconstructionen_US
dc.subjectDecolonial Theoryen_US
dc.subjectSettler Colonial Studiesen_US
dc.subjectSylvia Wynteren_US
dc.subjectJodi Byrden_US
dc.subjectJacques Derridaen_US
dc.subjectSpecters of Marxen_US
dc.subjectGenre Theoryen_US
dc.subjectTransgenreen_US
dc.subjectGloria Anzaldúaen_US
dc.subjectJohn Neihardten_US
dc.subjectBlack Elken_US
dc.subjectBlack Elk Speaksen_US
dc.subjectZora Neale Hurstonen_US
dc.subjectCarlos Castanedaen_US
dc.subjectCultural Anthropologyen_US
dc.subjectAlice Neihardt Thompsonen_US
dc.subjectSpiritualismen_US
dc.subjectNeo-Spiritualismen_US
dc.subjectPsychical Researchen_US
dc.subjectKenneth Burkeen_US
dc.subjectAnarchist Studiesen_US
dc.subjectAnti-Civilizationen_US
dc.subjectAnarcho-Primitivismen_US
dc.subjectRadical Ecologyen_US
dc.subjectDavid Graeberen_US
dc.subjectIndigenous Critiqueen_US
dc.titleOf Ghosts and Justice: Spectral Politics in 20th-Century U.S. Literatureen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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