The Aesthetics of Mastery: American Literary Naturalism and the Cultural Foundations of Bureaucracy

• Applicant: Professor Dr. James Dorson
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies ; African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: from 2013 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 236329866

• Final Report Year: 2015

Final Report Abstract

In conclusion, the project has led to three further developments: 1) The establishment of a Junior Research Group to further investigate the question of the relationship between American naturalism and managerialism that framed the original project. 2) The expansion of the original research framework to include a focus on American naturalism and managerialism from respectively the perspectives of affect theory and African American Studies to be examined in two doctoral projects in the newly established research group. 3) The development of the core project carried out by the principal investigator, where the focus has more specifically come to analyze late nineteenth-century discourses on the experimental sciences and statistics in management in relation to naturalism, as well as to include a chapter on the value of scientific management for feminist discourse in the writings of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Publications

• “Intimate Exchanges: Work, Affect, and Exploitation in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.” American Studies in Scandinavia 46.1 (2014): 55-68
  James Dorson
  
• “The Neoliberal Machine in the Bureaucratic Garden: Pastoral States of Mind in David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King.” In Rereading the Machine in the Garden: Nature and Technology in American Culture. Eds. Eric Erbacher, Nicole Maruo-Schröder, Florian Sedlmeier. Frankfurt-on-Main: Campus Verlag, 2014: 211-30
  James Dorson