Creation, Resistance, and Refacement: Postfuturist Storytelling, Cultural Flows, and the Remix

Author

Nikolina Nedeljkov, Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

English

Advisor

Peter Hitchcock

Abstract

Constitutive of my dissertation is an exploration of contemporary literature and culture. Vital to my research is the notion and practice of the remix. Originating in music, it is perceived and deployed as a hybrid expressive mode combining textual, audio, and visual components. The text of the dissertation, accompanying photographs, and supplementary video files demonstrate this principal aspect. Focusing on the fusion of quest narratives and social activism, the dissertation looks at critical and creative vernaculars as forms of peaceful/peaceable resistance against multiple oppression. Reflecting some of the permeating modernist and postmodernist concerns, it emphasizes an understanding of postfuturist storytelling as cultural exchange in the intersection of the time axes. Reading the works of Stewart Home, Jeff Noon, and Kathy Acker, alongside critical insights of Terry Eagleton, Richard Rorty, Fredric Jameson, and McKenzie Wark, contextualizes contemporary idiosyncrasies historically, thereby rendering tradition remixable, rather than radically abandoning it. The remix investigates alternating cycles of noise and silence in the communication channel as a basis for the disambiguation of the misconception about the totality of discourse. The approach delineates vision of refacement: rebirth through subtonic solidarity of selfless, yet reindividualized, fellow humans engaged in enduring the hindrances to patient, persistent creation of a free culture based on love and trust.

Recommended Citation

Nedeljkov, Nikolina, "Creation, Resistance, and Refacement: Postfuturist Storytelling, Cultural Flows, and the Remix" (2015). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1069