Elegant Complexity: The Presence of Cold War Game Theory In Postmodern American Fiction

<p>This study reconsiders the legacy of the Cold War in postmodern American fiction by combining readings of postwar literature and the cultural and historical narrative of game theory. Recently described by Steven Belletto as an under-examined cultural narrative that promised "scientific redemption" during the Cold War, game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that originated in 1944, with John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's publication of <em>Theory of Games and Economic Behavior</em>. In this dissertation, I illustrate a variety of rhetorical strategies that resist the profoundly dehumanizing effects of Cold War game theory--a theoretical apparatus rigidly applied to military and diplomatic policy throughout the postwar era. Complementing recent scholars, my project establishes the manner in which American postmodern authors, engaging in textual subversion of hegemonic discourses, reaffirm a vision of human agency. Read against a history of popular representations of game theory in the U.S., the writers of this study demonstrate how game-theoretic logic and language prioritize conflict and competition, thereby crippling prospects for collective social action. In "Game" (1965), <em>End Zone</em> (1972), <em>Don Quixote</em> (1986), <em>Prisoner's Dilemma</em> (1988), <em>Infinite Jest</em> (1996), and <em>No Country for Old Men</em> (2005) these authors interrogate the ethics and efficacy of deterministic models of behavior, and ultimately renounce the perfect rationality that underwrites Cold War Manichean ideology.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Campus Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English Language and Literatures

Year

2010

Author dc:creator

• Cagle, Jeremey Edward

Contributors dc:contributor

• David G. Cowart

• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature
• Cold War
• Deterrence
• Game Theory
• Postmodernism
• Rational
• Subversion

Statement dc:rights

• © 2010, Jeremey Edward Cagle

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/148

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarcommons.sc.edu:etd-1149