Fetishism and Its Discontents in Post-1960 American Fiction

272 Pages·2010·1.708 MB·English

by  Christopher Kocela (auth.)

AMERICAN LITERATURE READINGS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
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Fetishism and Its Discontents in Post-1960 American Fiction
By Christopher Kocela
Fetishism and Its Discontents in
Post-1960 American Fiction
Christopher Kocela
FETISHISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS IN POST-1960 AMERICAN FICTION
Copyright © Christopher Kocela, 2010.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-10290-3
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
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ISBN 978-1-349-28743-7 ISBN 978-0-230-10998-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230109988
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kocela, Christopher, 1971–
Fetishism and its discontents in post-1960 American fiction /
Christopher Kocela.
p. cm.—(American literature readings in the 21st century)
1. American literature—20th century—History and criticism.
2. American literature—21st century—History and criticism. 3. Fetishism
in literature. 4. Psychoanalysis and literature—United States. I. Title.
PS228.F48K63 2010
813(cid:2).54093538—dc22 2010001963
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Amanda, Julian, and Gabriel
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Fetishism and Its Discontents 1
Part I Fetishism from Theory to Fiction
1 A Parallax History of Fetish Theory 31
2 Signifying on Fetishism in Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo 61
Part II Fictions of the Female Fetish
3 Queering Lesbian Fetishism in Pynchon’s V. 91
4 Resighting Gender Theory: Butler’s Lesbian Phallus
in Acker’s Pussy 123
Part III Pomo-Pornologies
5 Domesticating Fantasy: S/M Fetishism,
Suburban Fiction, and Coover’s Spanking the Maid 155
6 Narrating the Death Drive:
Automotive SinthoMosexuality and Hawkes’s Travesty 187
Conclusion 215
Notes 221
Bibliography 245
Index 259
Acknowledgments
This book has lived two separate lives, one in Canada and one in
the United States, and I would like to thank those who have helped
it throughout its long development. The book began as a disserta-
tion at McGill University and was subsequently expanded as part of
a postdoctoral research project at Queen’s University in Kingston,
Ontario. I want first to express my appreciation to the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada for doctoral and post-
doctoral fellowships that supported me during this initial stage of
the project. Thank you to Berkeley Kaite for supervising my disserta-
tion, and thanks to the members of my dissertation committee, Peter
Gibian and Peter Ohlin, for support along the way. Thank you as
well to Asha Varadharajan and Paul Stevens for mentoring me during
my stay as a postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s. In this phase of writing
I benefited greatly from feedback that I received through the review
processes at the journals Genders and Pynchon Notes, and I thank the
anonymous readers for those journals as well as their editors, Ann
Kibbey and John M. Krafft, for taking an early interest in my work.
A portion of what is now chapter 4 was first published in Genders 34
(2001) under the title “A Myth Beyond the Phallus: Female Fetishism
in Kathy Acker’s Late Novels” and is presented here in revised form
with permission (www.genders.org). Chapter 3 was first published as
“Re-Stenciling Lesbian Fetishism in Pynchon’s V.” in Pynchon Notes
46–49 (2001) and appears here in significantly revised and expanded
form with permission.
On moving to Atlanta and Georgia State University my develop-
ing book underwent a major conceptual and theoretical overhaul
into its present form, for which I have several people to thank. The
Department of English “WIP” (Work in Progress) workshop provided
an early venue for feedback and revision, and I thank my colleagues in
that group—Randy Malamud, Renée Schatteman, Pearl McHaney,
Marilynn Richtarik, and LeeAnne Richardson—for their careful
reading and thoughtful commentary. Thanks especially to Randy
Malamud, who later reread the opening chapters of the manuscript
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
and offered invaluable practical and organizational advice. The work
that I produced through “WIP” was first published as “Resighting
Gender Theory: Butler’s Lesbian Phallus in Acker’s Pussy” in LIT:
Literature Interpretation Theory 17, no. 1 (2006). With permission of
the Taylor and Francis Group, that essay now appears here in revised
form as chapter 4. I also want to express my appreciation to the infor-
mal “Lacan reading group” which met at Emory University from
2004 to 2006 and which influenced a number of conceptual changes
in my manuscript. Thanks in particular to Cal Thomas for intro-
ducing me into the group, and to Adrian Johnston for generously
answering my subsequent queries concerning his own reading of the
drive in Freud and Lacan. Thank you to Georgia State University
and the Department of English for a Research Initiation Grant and
a Summer Research Award that provided time for reading and writ-
ing. In addition, the department has provided me with two graduate
research assistants in recent years, Florian Schwieger and Julie Hawk,
both of whom worked harder than I asked them to, for which I am
very grateful. Numerous portions of this book have been presented
at academic conferences in the United States, Canada, and England,
and I thank the many listeners and fellow panelists who have provided
helpful feedback. I would like to say thanks, too, to the editorial staff
at Palgrave. My editor, Brigitte Shull, was enthusiastic about my work
at a time when I needed it, and Lee Norton has responded to my wor-
ried e-mails and phone calls with calm and reassurance.
The only person who has lived both lives of this book with me is
my wife, Amanda, who has supported, believed, and been patient far
beyond my right to ask. To her I dedicate this book and with it, my
most heartfelt thanks and love.
Introduction:
Fetishism and Its Discontents
Late in Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud poses a question that
signals an important turn in his argument about the development
of culture. Having advanced the idea that civilization is the result
of a mythic struggle between Eros and Death, Freud asks: “What
means does civilization employ in order to inhibit the aggressiveness
which opposes it, to make it harmless, to get rid of it, perhaps?” (70).
The aggressiveness to which Freud refers is that “natural aggressive
instinct, the hostility of each against all and all against each” which
he defines as the main representative of the death drive (69). His
answer, elaborated over the remainder of his book, is that civilization
inhibits the aggressive instinct that opposes it at the level of the indi-
vidual, through a process of internalization. Part VII of Civilization
and Its Discontents describes the role played by guilt, sublimation,
and the superego in the development of civilized societies. In the
course of this argument, Freud offers an intriguing example of the
difference between primitive and civilized man where hostility and
guilt are concerned:
The people of Israel had believed themselves to be the favourite child
of God, and when the great Father caused misfortune after misfor-
tune to rain down upon this people of his, they were never shaken
in their belief in his relationship to them or questioned his power or
righteousness. Instead, they produced the prophets, who held up their
sinfulness before them; and out of their sense of guilt they created the
over-strict commandments of their priestly religion. It is remarkable
how differently a primitive man behaves. If he has met with a misfor-
tune, he does not throw the blame on himself but on his fetish, which
has obviously not done its duty, and he gives it a thrashing instead of
punishing himself. (74)
Freud does not elaborate on how the primitive beating of fetishes
might be regarded as a counterpoint to the creation of law, nor