Neoliberalism’s “official crap art”?
Sentimental humanism and the work of Tom McCarthy
British writer Tom McCarthy has repeatedly taken aim at what he calls a “sentimental humanism” and the
contemporary cult of the “authentic self”. This article investigates his work through the lens of that critique. Extrapolating
from McCarthy’s public statements, I endeavour to delineate sentimental humanism as a mode of cultural production and flesh out
his linking of it to a neoliberal political economy. I show how his antagonism manifests itself in his work, particularly his
debut novel, Remainder. By contrast, his latest novel, Satin Island, marks a turning point in
that trajectory. Although implicitly framed by its author as a way of thematising the challenges with which Big Data has
confronted literature, Satin Island more specifically reveals that his anti-humanist agenda has also reached an
impasse. Much of the logic behind the critique of sentimental humanism mounted by Remainder, I argue, is in a
sense pre-empted or assimilated by the kinds of corporate digital environments described in Satin Island.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Sentimental humanism
- 3.Authenticity and the creative economy
- 4.
Remainder’s poetics of inauthenticity
- 5.
Satin Island and the corporate scriptorium
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
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