Utopian connectivity to paranoid collapse: complex networks and global social ecologies in 20th-century fiction

This project treats complex systems, specifically global social and ecological networks, as central to understanding modern explorations and experiences of utopian connectivity and stability alongside dystopian paranoia and precarity. Through an examination of the fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, James Joyce, and David Mitchell, I analyze strengths and vulnerabilities of such systems. Gilman’s perfectly controlled and aggressively managed ecosystems are undercut by potentially catastrophic losses in biodiversity. Joyce’s celebratory view of networks and links across cosmic scales requires an acknowledgement and acceptance of humanity’s relative powerlessness in the face of such universal connections, which dwarf global economic and social networks. Mitchell illustrates how subtle social linkings across time and space can add up to create powerful technological, ecological, and social effects. However, the power in Mitchell’s dense global network is also its weakness; in Ghostwritten, efficiency in information transfer can be used for positive outcomes as well as to effect total apocalypse. Alongside and enmeshed with my analysis of Mitchell’s Ghostwritten, I present a comparison of manual and automatic methods I created for extracting social networks from literary texts as a first step toward developing a broadly applicable network extraction method. My proof of concept indicates that, with further iterations and refinements, it should be possible to establish a practical, reliable, and effective method for extracting and understanding social networks in novels, with the aim of using these models to understand more deeply the texts themselves and what they suggest about human experience, policy, and futurity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Ballard, Shawn C

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mahaffey, Vicki
• Underwood, Ted
• Courtemanche, Eleanor
• Gaedtke, Andrew

• David Mitchell
• James Joyce
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Complex networks
• Social networks

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Shawn Ballard

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97604

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/97604