Reading ruptures: empathy, gender, and the literature of bodily permeability【翻译】

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to start by thanking my directors, Naomi Greyser and Brooks
Landon. Thank you both for believing in my project even during the times
when it seemed like you each only understood half of it. I continue to be
inspired by your dedication to students and your enjoyment of writing. Thank
you as well to the rest of my committee, David Wittenberg, Loren Glass, and
Miriam Thaggert, for your notes and encouragement, and for the ideas sparked
in your classes that eventually found their way into this dissertation.
I would also like to thank Kathleen Diffley for your feedback on early
drafts, Jon Wilcox for your support, and Aimee Carrillo Rowe for your
uncanny gift for telling me exactly what I need to hear. Thank you as well to
Colleen Boggs and the rest of my Futures of American Studies group for
helping me figure out how to make the various pieces of my argument gel.
Thank you to the John F. Kennedy Library for a lovely week spent in your
archives, and to Stephen Sturgeon and Carl Eby for helping me determine what
from those archives I could use. Thank you to the University of Iowa English
Department and Graduate College for funding me through this project,
particularly through the Seely Fellowship, the Summer Research Fellowships,
and travel funding that enabled my trips to Boston and Hanover.
Finally, thank you to all my friends and family for the emotional support,
writing dates, brainstorming sessions, commiseration, and comic relief. It
wouldn’t have been any fun without you.
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ABSTRACT
The concept of empathy has long been studied by literary scholars. Empathy
can refer to several different affective, political, and aesthetic phenomena,
however, and its often assumed connection to reading is far from proven. This
dissertation explores three specific aspects of empathy as they appear in
postwar North American fiction, with special emphasis on what they suggest
about empathy’s relationship to gendered embodiment. Reading Ruptures
examines readerly empathy (an aesthetic encounter with literature) in
representations of dubious sexual consent; affective empathy (a political
sentiment) in representations of pregnancy; and communicative empathy (a
linguistic trope of science fiction) in representations of language viruses.
While these distinct types of empathy can be conceptualized and experienced
separately, they illuminate each other’s political opportunities and challenges
when placed in conversation. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that although
science fiction’s contributions to this conversation have historically been
undervalued, SF offers fresh insights into empathy’s continuing and evolving
relevance for posthuman embodiment and postmodern literature.
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PUBLIC ABSTRACT
When we talk about empathy, we might be referring to any of a number of different
experiences. Empathy can be an emotional or mental process of “feeling with” another
person, a physical experience of picking up the vibe of a room or unconsciously mirroring
what we see, or a sense of being immersed in a work of art. In science fiction, it can also be
a kind of communication that sends and receives emotions without the need for words.
Empathy is usually assumed to be a good thing, and even a prerequisite for ethical action.
It is also assumed to be strengthened by reading literature. But which kind of empathy do
we mean when we make such statements? How is it produced by reading? And how does it
make us better people?
This dissertation considers these questions by separately examining three meanings
of empathy. Whether it is a connection with a work of art, a sense of “feeling with” another
person, or a science fictional kind of communication, empathy has strong—and sometimes
unexpected—ties to literature. It also has a complicated relationship with bodies,
sometimes seeming to require them and sometimes seeking to transcend them. This project
focuses on one bodily experience per chapter (sexual violence, pregnancy, and virality),
using them to explore the political implications of the types of empathy discussed. This
dissertation ultimately argues that science fictional empathy, an often neglected use of the
term, is crucial to fully understanding empathy’s continuing importance.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: It’s All in Your Head 1
Three Empathies: Readerly, Affective, Communicative 8
“The Devil Things”: Readerly Empathy and Dubious Consent in
Post-45 Sexual Violence Literature 23
Entanglement and Complicity 28
Sympathy for the Devil: The Garden of Eden 35
Fucking with Consent: Fledgling 52
Interactive Characterization: Heavy Rain 70
Postcritical Attachments 85
“Voices From Inside this Nowhere Place”: Affective Empathy and
the Politics of Projection in Post-45 Pregnancy Literature 91
Privacy, Visuality, Temporality 96
Textual Detectives: Rosemary’s Baby 105
Making Pregnancy Visible: Surfacing 119
The Time-Traveling Fetus: The Salt Roads 134
Narrative Politics 146
“A Psychic Epidemic”: Communicative Empathy and Narrative
Perspective in Post-45 Viral Literature 152
The Language-Virus-God Drug 155
And the Word Became Flesh: Mumbo Jumbo 160
The View From Within: Blood Music 174
“The Sounding of the Soul Itself”: Embassytown 191
How to Do Things With Form 207
Conclusion: Reading Ruptures 211
References 217

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