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Automobility, materiality and Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis

Automobility, materiality and Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis In this paper I argue that an examination of changing patterns of mobility and automobility in contemporary literature can demonstrate ways that literary forms both reflect and produce cultural and social change. Focusing more specifically on automobility in Don DeLillo’s 21st century novel Cosmopolis, I take into account the car as it functions symbolically in the discursive realm with its promises of freedom and liberation, and its part in discourses of power, wealth and the ecological. I also acknowledge the impact of its presence as a material object that operates within global systems of production and consumption and integrated systems of roads. I conclude that the car in DeLillo’s novel not only contains ideas of automobility from the past, but also points the way forward to one future where the relative immobility of the congested automobile is countered by the mobility of the networking functions it contains. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Cultural Geographies SAGE

Automobility, materiality and Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis

Davidson, Ian
Cultural Geographies , Volume 19 (4): 14 – Oct 1, 2012
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References (11)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2012
ISSN
1474-4740
eISSN
1477-0881
DOI
10.1177/1474474012438819
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In this paper I argue that an examination of changing patterns of mobility and automobility in contemporary literature can demonstrate ways that literary forms both reflect and produce cultural and social change. Focusing more specifically on automobility in Don DeLillo’s 21st century novel Cosmopolis, I take into account the car as it functions symbolically in the discursive realm with its promises of freedom and liberation, and its part in discourses of power, wealth and the ecological. I also acknowledge the impact of its presence as a material object that operates within global systems of production and consumption and integrated systems of roads. I conclude that the car in DeLillo’s novel not only contains ideas of automobility from the past, but also points the way forward to one future where the relative immobility of the congested automobile is countered by the mobility of the networking functions it contains.

Journal

Cultural Geographies – SAGE

Published: Oct 1, 2012

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