Annika Gonnermann - Absent Rebels - Criticism and Network Power in 21st Century Dystopian Fiction

Annika Gonnermann

Absent Rebels: Criticism and Network Power in 21st Century Dystopian Fiction

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Tübingen

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E-Book-Produktion: pagina GmbH, Tübingen

ISSN 0175-3169

Print-ISBN 978-3-8233-8459-5

ePub-ISBN 978-3-8233-0255-1

The PhD road is long and winding and cannot be travelled alone. Many people have contributed to this project in many different ways and I would like to thank all of them. My sincerest thanks go to

… my supervisor Prof. Dr. Caroline Lusin, without whom I would never have embarked on let alone finished this journey; thank you for all the support, the kind words of encouragement whenever I needed them, the perfect work environment at the University of Mannheim and all your time and energy. I’m very proud to have been part of this team!

… my parents Peter and Brigitte Gonnermann, my brother David Gonnermannand my family, who encouraged me to choose this path and who have supported me through all these years of study.

… Christian Christiani, for being there always.

… Laura Winter, for all the hours of discussions we had about the right path to finishing our respective PhD projects.

… Lisa Schwander, Sina Schuhmaier, Stefan Benzand Stefan Danterfor being on this journey with me.

… my colleagues at the Department of English Literature at the University of Mannheim: Prof. Dr. Christine Schwaneckefor agreeing to co-supervise my project and Dr. Stefan Glombfor the intellectual input. A big thank you also goes to Barbara Magin, Anika Conradand Dr. Philip Griffithsfor their help and support.

… my friends Lucy Thompson, Laura Winter, Anna Lobmüller, Lena Geugjes, Johanne Hintzeand Jonas Hockfor proofreading hundreds of pages.

… to all the research assistants (Hiwis) in the English department, Michèle Benker, Annika Röckle, Jasmin Schnell, Marnie Hensler, Ruxandra Teodorescu, Antonia Hahn, Lea Exner, Alisa Dörr, Corina Santacruz, Filiz Altinkilic and Hanna Hellmuth for all the hours they spent in front of the photocopying machine for me.

… the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD)for their support in the form of (research) scholarships.

… the Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaftenand the VG Wort.

… Franziska Oetingerfrom FENEBERG Design GmbH for the wonderful cover design.

… Claudia Brendelfrom the University of Mannheim for helping me with the official requirements for finishing a PhD.

… Kathrin Heyng and her colleaguesfrom Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG for their support during the publication process.

… and Dr. Susanna Layhand Prof. Dr. Gregory Claeysfor their support and guidance.

“We do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles.”

Karl Marx quoted in Jaeggi, Critique 173

“The False, once determinately known and precisely expressed, is already an index of what is right and better.”

Theodor W. Adorno, Critical Models 288

If you are not already a little interested and open-minded with regard to social and political questions, and a little exercised in self-examination, you will find neither interest nor pleasure here. (H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia, A Note to the Reader 8)

In January 2017, George Orwell’s nearly 70-year-old classic Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) rose once again to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list (cf. Alter; also Kakutani). While this fact in itself is not surprising, since Orwell’s master piece “must be among the most widely read books in the history of the world“ (Gleason and Nussbaum 1) and has always had a stable readership, the timing is startling. Prompted by statements about ‘alternative facts’ uttered by Kellyanne Conway, spokeswoman to the 45 thPresident of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, dystopia rose back into the spotlight, having been rediscovered by authors, filmmakers, and the general public apparently as a reading aid to decipher and make sense of our current socio-cultural reality.1 Other dystopias were also ‘rediscovered’ as analytical tool for a social diagnosis of our time. The 2017 series adaption of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), for instance, immediately received positive critical attention (including an Emmy win) for its blunt and terrifying description of religious devotion gone astray, with its visuals (red gown and supersize white bonnet) immediately adopted by the #Metoo movement and the defenders of abortion rights for women in both the United States and abroad. Fittingly, in the very same year, novels by Orwell, Atwood, and Erik Larson were distributed free of charge by an anonymous philanthropist as a means of education and “fight[ing] back” (Kean). While dystopia has always enjoyed a canonical place among Western literature and a loyal reader base, it is now firmly back on the agenda for literature, the media, and the public.

According to Darko Suvin’s ‘ radically less perfect principle ,’ dystopia is defined as

the construction of a particular community where sociopolitical institutions, norms, and individual relationships between people are organized according to a radically less perfect principle than in the author’s community; this construction is based on estrangement arising out of an alternative historical hypothesis. (reformulated based on “Theses” 188f., emphasis in the original)

These literary and radically less perfect communities always appear at the “great whirlpool periods of history“ (Suvin, Metamorphoses 7)2 and react to “explicit or immanent socio-political defects” of the present (cf. Zeißler 9). Keith M. Booker agrees, stating that “the modern turn to dystopian fiction is largely attributable to perceived inadequacies in existing social and political systems” ( Impulse 20). Dystopia’s function, then, can be adequately described as formulating a warning “that if certain social trends go unchecked, the future will exhibit certain specific undesirable qualities” (Zaki 244; cf. also Tuzinski 88). It offers a “diagnosis, a warning, a call to understanding and action, and – most importantly – a mapping of possible alternatives” (Suvin, Metamorphoses 12).

As has been argued, classical dystopian fiction has recently attracted more interest from readers and scholars alike, as “[i]n this fake news, post-truth era, books like #TheHandmaidsTale, 1984 [sic!]3 and Brave New World