Democratic Anarchy - by Matthew Scully (Paperback)

About the Book

"At its core, Democratic Anarchy: Aesthetics and Political Resistance in US Literature grapples with an uncomfortable but obvious truth inimical to democracy: both aesthetics and politics depend on the structuring antagonism of inclusion and exclusion. Yet in Democratic Anarchy, Scully asks, how can "the people" be represented in a way that acknowledges what remains unrepresentable? What would it mean to face up to the constitutive exclusions that haunt U.S. democracy and its anxious fantasies of equality? Synthesizing a broad range of theoretical traditions and interlocutors-including Lacan, Ranciáere, Edelman, and Hartman-Democratic Anarchy polemically declares that there has never been, nor can there ever be, a realized democracy in the U.S. because democracy always depends on the hierarchical institution of a formal order by one part of the population over another. Engaging with an expansive corpus of American literature and art (Harriet Jacobs, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louis Zukofsky, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Nari Ward, Ocean Vuong, and Safiya Sinclair), Democratic Anarchy argues that many liberal concepts and institutions are in fact structurally opposed to democratic equality because they depend on regulating what can appear and in what form. By focusing on works that disrupt this regulatory impulse, Scully shows how rhetorical strategies of interruption, excess, and disorder figure the anarchic equality that inegalitarian fantasies of democracy disavow. Democratic Anarchy develops a rigorous theory of equality that refuses to repeat the inequalities against which it positions itself, and it does so by turning to moments of resistance-both aesthetic and political-inaugurated by the equality that inheres in and antagonizes the order of things. The breadth of the book's theoretical and literary engagements will make it of interest not only to scholars of American literary studies but to anyone invested in contemporary literary and theoretical debates"--

Book Synopsis

A dramatic and necessary rethinking of the meaning of Democracy

Democratic Anarchy grapples with an uncomfortable but obvious truth inimical to democracy: both aesthetics and politics depend on the structuring antagonism of inclusion and exclusion. Yet in Democratic Anarchy, Matthew Scully asks, how can "the people" be represented in a way that acknowledges what remains unrepresentable? What would it mean to face up to the constitutive exclusions that haunt U.S. democracy and its anxious fantasies of equality?

Synthesizing a broad range of theoretical traditions and interlocutors--including Lacan, Rancière, Edelman, and Hartman--Democratic Anarchy polemically declares that there has never been, nor can there ever be, a realized democracy in the U.S. because democracy always depends on the hierarchical institution of a formal order by one part of the population over another. Engaging with an expansive corpus of American literature and art (Harriet Jacobs, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louis Zukofsky, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Nari Ward, Ocean Vuong, and Safiya Sinclair), Democratic Anarchy argues that many liberal concepts and institutions are in fact structurally opposed to democratic equality because they depend on regulating what can appear and in what form.

By focusing on works that disrupt this regulatory impulse, Scully shows how rhetorical strate-gies of interruption, excess, and disorder figure the anarchic equality that inegalitarian fantasies of democracy disavow. Democratic Anarchy develops a rigorous theory of equality that refuses to repeat the inequalities against which it positions itself, and it does so by turning to moments of resistance--both aesthetic and political--inaugurated by the equality that inheres in and antago-nizes the order of things.

Review Quotes

Matthew Scully's Democratic Anarchy is a fascinating and provocative exploration of American literature in relation to democratic politics.-- "Transatlantica: Revue d'études américaines"

All readers of Scully. . . will find their certainties questioned, their convictions probed, and should relish seeing their favorite literary touchstones re-illuminated in the strobe light of political relevance and political impotence.-- "Anglia: Journal of English Philology"

Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière in particular, Democratic Anarchy offers a compelling theory of democracy and an incisive critique of consensus politics in the United States. Its sharp rhetorical readings of diverse examples of US literature draw out a vision of radical equality beyond the limits of representation.---Christian P. Haines, author of A Desire Called America: Biopolitics, Utopia, and the Literary Commons

About the Author

Matthew Scully is Lecturer in American Literature and Culture at the University of Lausanne. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including the Journal of Modern Literature, Diacritics, African American Review, American Literature, Critical Inquiry, and Postmodern Culture