Carnisaurs and Capital: Assertion and Preservation of Hegemony in the Novels of Michael Crichton

Date of Graduation

Fall 1997

Degree

Master of Arts in English

Department

English

Committee Chair

William Burling

Abstract

Although Michael Crichton's novels have achieved tremendous popularity over the past three decades, the state of critical examination has stagnated. At present only a handful of publications, including a flawed book-length study, illuminates an author who conceived the popular science fiction sub-genre, the techno-thriller. Implementing Fredric Jameson's theory of the "political unconscious" and Ernst Mandel's analysis of the ideology of late capitalism, this thesis examines the novels of Michael Crichton, contending that while his novels provide the semblance of critiquing the present epoch, the novels in fact reify the powerful "ideology of the specialist" as the novels assert the hegemony of late capitalism.

Subject Categories

English Language and Literature

Copyright

© William Christopher Sewell

Citation-only

Dissertation/Thesis

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