The Aesthetics and Hermeneutics of the Secret in Contemporary British Fiction, 1998-2018

我的专著长度的博士研究项目提供了“秘密”作为当代英国小说叙事美学的第一个调查。我认为，秘密，在它的隐藏和有选择地分配知识，破坏了新自由主义的秘密文化，这是新自由主义社会关系转型的关键。在这种破坏中，在不同的历史时期，对于公共保密的登记，我认为秘密构成了小说中不断变化的战场，在那里，新自由主义对社会关系的改造被暴露和争论。我的研究扩展了新自由主义作为产生某些社会关系和存在形式的全球理性的概念（Brown2005, Fisher 2009， Dardot和Laval 2011， Chandler和Reid 2016）。我的中心观点是，理解打破和保守秘密的方法的变化是理解新自由主义时代当代英国小说的关键。我将分析杰基·凯的《喇叭》（1998）、纳迪姆·阿斯拉姆的《失散恋人地图》（2004）、安东尼·约瑟夫的《不明飞行物的非洲起源》（2006）、扎迪·史密斯的《N-W》（2012）和莎莉·鲁尼的《正常人》（2018）。单独来看，这些获奖的小说和作家形成了一个新兴的学术体系，但还没有通过他们对秘密的美学进行比较研究。

My monograph-length doctoral research project offers the first investigation of 'the secret' as a narrativeaesthetic in contemporary British fiction. I will argue that the secret, in its concealment and selectiveredistribution of knowledge, disrupts a neoliberal culture of secrecy key to neoliberalism's transformationof social relations. In this disruption, across different historical times for the registration of public secrecy,I argue that the secret comprises a changing battleground in fiction, where neoliberalism'stransformation of social relations is exposed and contested. My research extends on a conception ofneoliberalism as a global rationality producing certain social relations and forms of existence (Brown2005, Fisher 2009, Dardot and Laval 2011, Chandler and Reid 2016). My central claim is thatunderstanding changing approaches to the breaking and keeping of secrets is key to understandingcontemporary British fiction in an age of neoliberalism. I will analyse Jackie Kay's Trumpet (1998),Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers (2004), Anthony Joseph's The African Origins of UFOs (2006), ZadieSmith's N-W (2012), and Sally Rooney's Normal People (2018). Individually, these award-winning novelsand writers form an emerging body of scholarship but are yet to be studied comparatively via theiraesthetics of the secret.