“The dumber I behave, the richer I get”: Literary post-truth, positivism, and American Fiction (2023)
| dc.contributor.author | Price, Jordan | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-04-28T22:56:42Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-04-28T22:56:42Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This project examines the Academy Award-winning film American Fiction (2023), which deals with the construction of race in American literature. While extant criticism has focused on the film’s depiction of modern race relations, scholars have yet to analyze American Fiction through the lens of literary scholarship. I position the film among the works of Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, drawing attention to the ongoing debate about representation, black experience, and the literary imagination. The project focuses on how the film brings the debate into the third millennium, highlighting how literature reacts to post-truth politics. I argue that American Fiction describes a contemporary, post-truth literary culture that opposes the same positivist forms of activism that inspired tangible change in American society, ranging from the abolition of enslavement in 1865 to Black Lives Matter in 2020. I discuss the ethical duties of literature in Trump-era America. | |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Undergraduate | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA) | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/22038 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University Of Victoria | |
| dc.subject | American literature | |
| dc.subject | post-truth | |
| dc.subject | film studies | |
| dc.subject | black history | |
| dc.subject | positivism | |
| dc.title | “The dumber I behave, the richer I get”: Literary post-truth, positivism, and American Fiction (2023) | |
| dc.type | Poster |