University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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

Ballard, Shawn C

Content Files
BALLARD-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf

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

Description

Title
Utopian connectivity to paranoid collapse: complex networks and global social ecologies in 20th-century fiction
Author(s)
Ballard, Shawn C
Issue Date
2017-04-20
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Mahaffey, Vicki
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
  • Mahaffey, Vicki
  • Underwood, Ted
Committee Member(s)
  • Courtemanche, Eleanor
  • Gaedtke, Andrew
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2017-08-10T19:52:13Z
Keyword(s)
  • David Mitchell
  • James Joyce
  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  • Complex networks
  • Social networks
Abstract
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.
Graduation Semester
2017-05
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97604
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2017 Shawn Ballard

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Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
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