Fictions of Finance at the End of an American Century: Punctuating Capital

Fictions of Finance at the End of an American Century explores how an economy determines the language of those who live among its imperatives and makes available to them the stories they can and cannot tell. It offers an account of the sub-semantic whispering that haunts the literature of the financial turn, deploying and elaborating on a materialist theory of language that explains how syntactic and semantic structures register a financializing economy's core contradictions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 11 July 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Fictions of Finance at the End of an American Century delves into the intricate relationship between an economy and the language spoken by its inhabitants. It uncovers the mechanisms by which the economy shapes the narratives available to individuals, as well as the constraints imposed on their storytelling. By closely examining fictional narratives, the study reveals the historical frameworks that govern the use of language, both in literature and broader contexts. This fourth installment in a series of studies on the emergence and decline of a Fordist regime of capitalist accumulation offers a comprehensive account of the sub-semantic whispers that permeate the literature of the financial turn. It explores how the complexities of words and their histories capture the contradictions and failures inherent in an expanding industrial economy. By contextualizing the study within deindustrialization and the rise of US finance capital after 1973, it further develops a materialist theory of language that sheds light on how syntactic and semantic structures register the core contradictions of a financializing economy, particularly those related to debt, risk, and volatility. The volume employs a discerning ear to detect the under-heard syntactical breaks that punctuate language under the global dominance of finance, capturing the unspoken in all utterances. It serves as an exemplar by primarily focusing on works by Bret Easton Ellis, Jayne Anne Phillips, and David Foster Wallace. Through these literary examples, Fictions of Finance at the End of an American Century offers a profound exploration of the ways in which finance shapes the language and narratives of individuals, illuminating the complex interplay between economic forces and linguistic expression.

Weight: 510g
Dimension: 240 x 160 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192867759