Fetishism and Its Discontents

[Dave Monroe]

Fetishism and Its Discontents in Post-1960 American Fiction
Christopher Kocela
Series: American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century

Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010


This study explores the concept of fetishism as a strategy for
expressing social and political discontent in American literature, and
for negotiating traumatic experiences particular to the second half of
the twentieth century.

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=406147

Fetishism and Its Discontents argues that post-1960 American fiction
utilizes fetishism as a strategy for expressing social and political
discontent and for negotiating traumatic experiences. Through close
readings of novels and short stories by Thomas Pynchon, Kathy Acker,
Ishmael Reed, John Hawkes, and Tim O’Brien, among others, Christopher
Kocela moves away from the entrenched, Freudian constructs of
fetishism and uncovers a new understanding of the fetish as a parallax
object that testifies to often threatening differences in racial,
gender, and class perspectives.  The first detailed study of its kind,
this book brings originality and rigor to a culturally timely topic.

http://us.macmillan.com/fetishismanditsdiscontentsinpost1960americanfiction

Thanks, Prof. Krafft!