Don DeLillo (1936 - )

Don DeLillo (1936 - )

White Noise (1985)

Don DeLillo (1936 - )

White Noise (1985)Underworld (1997)

Don DeLillo (1936 - )

White Noise (1985)Underworld (1997)Cosmopolis (2003)

New York Times, April 13, 2003

“Though Don DeLillo gives his characters names, he might as well just assign them serial numbers. The barely corporeal cerebral entities that populate the pages of ''Cosmopolis,'' a novel about the alleged insanity of Nasdaq-era hypercapitalism, aren't so much people as walking topic headings.”

New York Times, April 13, 2003

“Though Don DeLillo gives his characters names, he might as well just assign them serial numbers. The barely corporeal cerebral entities that populate the pages of ''Cosmopolis,'' a novel about the alleged insanity of Nasdaq-era hypercapitalism, aren't so much people as walking topic headings.”

New York Times, April 13, 2003

“Though Don DeLillo gives his characters names, he might as well just assign them serial numbers. The barely corporeal cerebral entities that populate the pages of ''Cosmopolis,'' a novel about the alleged insanity of Nasdaq-era hypercapitalism, aren't so much people as walking topic headings.”“Beware the novel of ideas, particularly when the ideas come first and all the novel stuff (like the story) comes second.” –Walter Kim

New York Times, April 13, 2003

“Though Don DeLillo gives his characters names, he might as well just assign them serial numbers. The barely corporeal cerebral entities that populate the pages of ''Cosmopolis,'' a novel about the alleged insanity of Nasdaq-era hypercapitalism, aren't so much people as walking topic headings.”“Beware the novel of ideas, particularly when the ideas come first and all the novel stuff (like the story) comes second.” –Walter Kim

The Guardian, June 14, 2012

“DeLillo's highly charged language, when parcelled up into film dialogue, is cumbersome and self-conscious without the original speck of deadpan drollery. It is possible to read Cosmopolis as a premonition of the economic crash we now know all about, but really it looks like an exercise in zeitgeist-connoisseurship that appears obtuse, self-indulgent and fatally shallow.” –Peter Bradshaw

The Guardian, June 14, 2012

“DeLillo's highly charged language, when parcelled up into film dialogue, is cumbersome and self-conscious without the original speck of deadpan drollery. It is possible to read Cosmopolis as a premonition of the economic crash we now know all about, but really it looks like an exercise in zeitgeist-connoisseurship that appears obtuse, self-indulgent and fatally shallow.” –Peter Bradshaw

Los Angeles Review of Books

The democratic idealism of a left movement dedicated to raising the consciousness of the masses to their own real interests and persuading people that capitalism can be sort of, you know, excessive and unkind is exposed as foolishly ineffectual. All opposition to the techno-capitalist nexus in Cosmopolis is reduced to loud but merely cathartic protest, symbolic gesture, and at its outer reaches, literal martyrdom, assassination and terror. It’s all impotence and despair. History’s done. Techno-capitalism won.” --Cornel Bonca

Los Angeles Review of Books

The democratic idealism of a left movement dedicated to raising the consciousness of the masses to their own real interests and persuading people that capitalism can be sort of, you know, excessive and unkind is exposed as foolishly ineffectual. All opposition to the techno-capitalist nexus in Cosmopolis is reduced to loud but merely cathartic protest, symbolic gesture, and at its outer reaches, literal martyrdom, assassination and terror. It’s all impotence and despair. History’s done. Techno-capitalism won.” --Cornel Bonca

New Yorker, August 27, 2012

We can feel DeLillo’s loathing for the dematerialized world of financial manipulation; he makes Eric a kind of science-fiction metaphor of a human being, and Cronenberg cast the right man for a living cyborg. – David Denby

New Yorker, August 27, 2012

We can feel DeLillo’s loathing for the dematerialized world of financial manipulation; he makes Eric a kind of science-fiction metaphor of a human being, and Cronenberg cast the right man for a living cyborg. – David Denby

New Yorker

Cronenberg has retained much of DeLillo’s dialogue, which is, by turns, clipped and expansive and idea-studded—a kind of postmodernist exposition of how money functions in cyberspace. And he has come up with an equivalent to DeLillo’s curt and cool equipoise—a style of filmmaking that is classically measured and calm, without an extra shot or cut.

New Yorker

Cronenberg has retained much of DeLillo’s dialogue, which is, by turns, clipped and expansive and idea-studded—a kind of postmodernist exposition of how money functions in cyberspace. And he has come up with an equivalent to DeLillo’s curt and cool equipoise—a style of filmmaking that is classically measured and calm, without an extra shot or cut.

Cosmopolis

Problems:- Novel of ideas

Cosmopolis

Problems:- Novel of ideas- Relation to capitalism before and after

dot.com bubble

Cosmopolis

Problems:- Novel of ideas- Relation to capitalism before and after

dot.com bubble- Anticipating financial crisis

The machine age is over:

“He took out his hand organizer and poked a note to himself about the anachronistic quality of the word skyscraper. No recent structure ought to bear this word. It belonged to the olden soul of awe, to the arrowed towers that were a narrative long before he was born” (9).

The machine age is over:

“He took out his hand organizer and poked a note to himself about the anachronistic quality of the word skyscraper. No recent structure ought to bear this word. It belonged to the olden soul of awe, to the arrowed towers that were a narrative long before he was born” (9).

“Why do we still have airports?” (22)

“They [the bank towers] looked empty from here . He liked that idea. They were made to be the last tall things, made empty, designed to hasten the future. They were the end of the outside world. They weren’t here, exactly. They were in the future, a time beyond geography and touchable money and the people who stack and count it. (36)

rats

Epigraph: “A rat became the unit of currency” Zbigniew Herbert (Polish poet and essayist)

Parker and Chin

“There’s a poem I read in which a rat becomes the unit of currency.”

“Yes. That would be interesting,” Chin said.“Yes. That would impact the world economy.”“The name alone. Better than the dong or the kwacha.”“The name says everything.”“Yes. The rat,” Chin said.“ Yes. The rat closed lower today against the euro.” (23)

Electronic display: “A RAT BECAME THE UNIT OF CURRENCY” (96)

Following:A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING THE WORLD—THE

SPECTER OF CAPITALISM

Protest

“Even with the beatings and gassings, the jolt of explosives, even in the assault on the investment bank, he thought there was something theatrical about the protest, ingratiating, even, in the parachutes and skateboards, the styrofoam rat, in the tactical coup of reprogramming the stock tickers with poetry and Karl Marx” (99).

Protest

“Even with the beatings and gassings, the jolt of explosives, even in the assault on the investment bank, he thought there was something theatrical about the protest, ingratiating, even, in the parachutes and skateboards, the styrofoam rat, in the tactical coup of reprogramming the stock tickers with poetry and Karl Marx” (99).

Protest performance 1[first clip: 01:41 ]

Protest performance 1[first clip: 01:41 ]

Protest performance 2[second clip: 58:39]

Protest performance 1[first clip: 01:41 ]

Protest performance 2[second clip: 58:39]

Security performance[01:41]

Digital sublime

“He studied the figural diagrams that brought organic patterns into play, birdwing and chambered shell. It was shallow thinking to maintain that numbers and charts were the cold compression of unruly human energies, every sort of yearning and midnight sweat reduced to lucid units in the financial markets. In fact data itself was soulful and glowing, a dynamic aspect of the life process. This was the eloquence of alphabets and numeric systems, now fully realized in electronic form, in the zero-oneness of the world, the digital imperative that defined every breath of the planet’s living billions. (24)

Digital sublime

“He studied the figural diagrams that brought organic patterns into play, birdwing and chambered shell. It was shallow thinking to maintain that numbers and charts were the cold compression of unruly human energies, every sort of yearning and midnight sweat reduced to lucid units in the financial markets. In fact data itself was soulful and glowing, a dynamic aspect of the life process. This was the eloquence of alphabets and numeric systems, now fully realized in electronic form, in the zero-oneness of the world, the digital imperative that defined every breath of the planet’s living billions. (24)

Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)

Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)

Professor of Logic, moral philosophyTheory of Moral Sentiments (1859)SympathySelf-interestMarket (competition)Division of laborInvisible hand

Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)

System of perfect liberty, hampered byMonopoliesGuildsImport dues and taxes

Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)

Role of the governmentDefenseJusticeInfrastructureEducation

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Benjamin Franklin (06 – 1790)The Art of Virtue

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)The Art of Virtue

Frugality: “Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. waste nothing.”

Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions” (83)

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)Life writing (autobiography): creation of selfMode of life, including values and habits (culture)These values are geared towards increase in

wealthThey are realized by calculation, a form of book

keeping (his method).

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhere

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhereGreed

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhereGreed (self-interest)Capitalist adventurers (irrational speculation)

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhereGreed (self-interest)Capitalist adventurers (irrational speculation)War expenditures

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhereBUT

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhereBUTIt becomes a dominant system in Christian

countries

Max Weber (1862 – 1920)

Capitalism exists everywhereBUTIt becomes a dominant system in Christian

countriesANDIt thrives in Protestant countries as well as

Protestant areas of multi-confessional countries more than in Catholic ones

What is worldly asceticism?

Benjamin Franklin: frugality and industryThis mean:Limits on consumption. Cradle of modern

economic man.Work as ascetic practice, not means to an end.Work as calling (vocation).Fixed calling (Luther) justification for division of

labor.

Herman Melville (1819 – 1891)

Pilvi Takala, The Trainee (2008)

Deloitte: audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management firm

Takala was justJust sitting there, without a computerSpending all day in elevator

Ibsen’s World

Doctors, lawyers, real estate developers, bankersWorld of bourgeois capitalism (Weber)Not set at the office or workplaceHome

Harley Granville Barker (1877 – 1946)

Preferred shares (Alguazils preferred)Atherley Trust4 ½ percent (government bonds)Land lease Mortages

RiskInterestDebt Tax

George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

Weapon manufacturing – Salvation Army

Act II+III: conflict between these two institutionsand their interrelation

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

Communist Manifesto as world literature

Revolutionary character of the bourgeoisie, creating a globalized world

Sublime force of bourgeois capitalism

But the bourgeoisie creates its successor: the proletariat (dialectics)

Historical materialism

Materialism as inversion of idealism: Marx turns Hegel around: economic conditions determine ideas, not the other way around.

Marx turns Hegel back on his feet.(Economic) base – (political and cultural)

superstructure

Cultural explanation:

Question of origin: a mode of life originating elsewhere (Puritanism) gets “selected” because it happens to suit capitalism (agency lies with capitalism)

Question of (ultimate) cause: sometimes ideas transform economic relations

Karel Čapek (1890 – 1938)

R.U.R. = Rossum’s Universal Robots

Robota = serf labor, hard, manual workRozum = reason

Economic explanation

Industrialization created a class that will overthrow bourgeoisie: the workers (Robots)

Reforms (Helen), seeking recognition of workers as human, are useless

Only nationalism can avert united front of workers

Historical reference point: WWI and Russian Revolution

Ending?

Robots become human: emotionssuperfluous wordsadmire beautyuselessness (Helen and Helen Robot)they will procreate like animals/humans (Alquist: “If you want to live you’ll have to breed, like animals!”)

Robots are re-naturalized: evolution continues

Eugene O’Neill (1888 -1953)

Hairy Ape (1922)

First Machine Age:Steam engineRail roadSteelHeavy industry

Muybridge, Horse in motion

Chronophotograph (1882)

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending A Staircase (1912)

Frederick Winslow Taylor

Against rule-of-thumb method; experiment in order to economize all movements

Break down motions into parts; eliminate unnecessary motions

Conserving energyPaths way for Henry Ford’s assembly line

Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874 – 1940)

Theater of the first machine ageNew acting and movement: biomechanicsTaylorism for the stage

Fritz Lang (1890 – 1976)

Future (futurism): Metropolis (2026)Model for 20th century science fiction, such as

Blade RunnerVertical organizationElimination of nature

Tower of Babel, Peter Bruegel the Elder (1563)

Charlie Chaplin (1889 – 1977)

Chaplin and the machine:Keeping up with machineRepetitive movementsConcentration (absorption)Becoming one with the machineInterruptionsWork and leisure

Sophie Treadwell (1885 – 1970)

Ruth Snyer

Office machineHome machineHoneymoon machineMaternal machineLaw machineElectric chair

Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)

Paul Samson-Körner

Brecht’s emerging theory of theater

Going to the theater like watching sportsNot about motives, but moves in a gameDo not empathize, but observe impartiallyBrecht’s admiration for the “objective” fighting

style of Boxer Paul Samson-Körner, to whom he devotes a (unfinished) play called “The Human Fighting Machine”

Shen Te and Shui Ta played by same actorVisible costume change: audience knows something the other characters don’tExpert audienceEstranged acting

Brecht on Chinese acting

No fourth wallUse of symbols visible scene changes“the actors openly choose those positions which will best show them off to the

audience, just as if they were acrobats”

Joseph Schumpeter, Harvard Yard

Source of creative destruction is entrepreneur

Entrepreneur emerges from the culture (or spirit) of capitalism

Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982)

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1987 - 2006

Rand portrays not the rational, calculating economic actor

but exemplifies in her characters and the world she constructs around them the “philosophical base” of capitalism, a world that is meant to reveal the values of capitalism

Rand and Brecht

Views on charity?Manifesto-like speeches?Construction of character?Techniques of political art?

Wright, Falling Water

David Mamet (1947 - )

How language works:ThreatsFantasiesInsinuationsRobbery plot: just listening means being implicated [third bookmark: 0:45]