Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Mob:
T2 - J. G. Ballard's Turn to the Collective
AU - Evans, Joel Christopher
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - The article identifies a shift in J. G. Ballard's work from a preoccupation with the individual to a preoccupation with the collective. It reads Ballard's late fiction as being part of a wider turn in the culture of Western, neoliberal states toward a reignition of a spirit of collectivism. With Ballard's work, this is most striking in the novels' depiction of neoliberal societies themselves, and so the essay begins with a treatment of how they are figured. What emerges from this is that Ballard's depiction of potentially new collective forms of life is at once utopian and dystopian. In fact, the dystopian elements identified lead on to a much deeper trait of the work. That is the reactionary tendency to portray the collective as a violent mob, which, as is demonstrated, has a long history and an increasingly prominent present.
AB - The article identifies a shift in J. G. Ballard's work from a preoccupation with the individual to a preoccupation with the collective. It reads Ballard's late fiction as being part of a wider turn in the culture of Western, neoliberal states toward a reignition of a spirit of collectivism. With Ballard's work, this is most striking in the novels' depiction of neoliberal societies themselves, and so the essay begins with a treatment of how they are figured. What emerges from this is that Ballard's depiction of potentially new collective forms of life is at once utopian and dystopian. In fact, the dystopian elements identified lead on to a much deeper trait of the work. That is the reactionary tendency to portray the collective as a violent mob, which, as is demonstrated, has a long history and an increasingly prominent present.
KW - J. G. Ballard
KW - collective
KW - utopia
KW - dystopia
KW - mob
M3 - Journal article
VL - 53
SP - 436
EP - 451
JO - Novel: A Forum on Fiction
JF - Novel: A Forum on Fiction
SN - 0029-5132
IS - 3
ER -