Thomas Phillips

Cate Rivers

Imposing Fictions aims to ameliorate the growing problem of what Martin Heidegger refers to as psychological and cultural “homelessness” by diagnosing the nature of the latter’s current manifestations and offering readings of literature that seek to inspire the genuine, and genuinely subversive, alterity required by an authentic mode of being. Specifically, it advocates for the value of subversive literature and its capacity to impose itself on the multitude of cultural and psychological preconceptions that govern the generalized but deeply personal, contemporary self. Subversiveness in this context implies pushing against the grain of identity formation as commonly dictated by the hegemony of technology. It does so both stylistically and thematically by foregrounding the imperative of figurative death in the service of authenticity. With the theoretical frameworks of Martin Heidegger and Alain Badiou as central guideposts, literary texts ranging from genre horror to American and French fiction are examined for their contributions to the legitimization of a metaphoric death drive and a concomitant, ameliorative quality of being that ultimately assumes the form of what some philosophers and fiction writers alike call love.

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