Foreign Object
Date of Award
6-15-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts
First Advisor
Joanna Howard
Second Advisor
Patrick Cottrell
Third Advisor
R. D. Perry
Fourth Advisor
Thomas Nail
Keywords
Novel, Speculative, Anthropocene
Abstract
Foreign Object comprises the first part of a novel series that seeks to complicate the concepts of the Anthropocene epoch in fiction through its investigations of form and narrative, as well as the invasive properties of a recursive society determined to ignore or normalise climate events. The narrative of Foreign Object focuses on John Salmon, a university professor who has been infected by an ancient spore, and the bizarre series of events that follow in his life. Foreign Object is also about Salmon’s attempts to write his own novel about the Anthropocene, and the maddening habits of thought and practice this instils within him. Foreign Object is a distressed novel about recursion and the text interacts with metatextual ideas on the page, which disrupt and commune with the mythology of whole narrative. This section, Accumulation, concerns Salmon’s growing alienation from the madness of real life. The critical introduction discusses the current state of the Anthropocene novel and the theoretical grounding these novels are concerned with.
Copyright Date
6-2024
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. Permanently suppressed.
Rights Holder
David Whelan
Provenance
Received from author
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
217 pgs
File Size
772 KB
Recommended Citation
Whelan, David, "Foreign Object" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2386.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2386