Make Presentism Great Again

  • Saaleha Musejee

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with bringing to light the importance of presentism - an approach to literary studies which has been heavily maligned by critics in the past. Presentism, which has developed from literary critical forms of historicism, “explicitly evok[es] the present concerns that motivate a desire to reread old literature” (Egan 2013: p.39) by theorising “the critic as temporal mediator who owns up to constructing meaning” (Gajowski 2010: p. 674). Amidst the 2016 presidential victory of Donald Trump, the sales of three books sky-rocketed, signalling a correlation between despotisms of the past and adaptive totalitarianisms of the twenty-first century. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, each gained a newfound relevance in the weeks just after Trump’s victory. In my thesis, I will focus on how the rediscovery of a novel, a play and a philosophical text is fundamental in understanding the essence of cult leadership in an age of fake news. Moreover, I will analyse how Trump’s presidency has moved the discourse of authoritarianism from the distant past to the centre of American politics.
Date of Award16 Jul 2020
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorDavid Rudrum (Main Supervisor) & James Underwood (Co-Supervisor)

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