Abstract

Taking a cue from recent discussions in postcriticism, this project develops a method of reading that views literary works as inherently theoretical, informed by the project of Pragmatics defined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Whereas traditional modes of reading use a work of theory to unlock the hidden secrets of a literary text, I articulate a process of co-reading, where texts are instead used to illustrate and complicate one another. This style of reading asks how a fictional text problematizes not only its own critical interpretation, but its relation to the circumstances under which it was created. I show how Ann Quin’s 1969 novel¸ Passages, experiments with many of the same themes explored later by Deleuze and Guattari. By reading these theorists alongside Quin, I argue that the theme of thresholds—between physical, emotional, and mental spaces—affords a look into the affective and perceptive experiences of life under what I call Spectacular Nomadism, an effect of late-stage capitalism wherein subjectivities are flattened into relations of images, turning individuals into alienated nomads, unable to either connect with others or themselves in any stable way. This conception of nomadism builds off and departs from a more positive conception of Nomadology as conceived by Deleuze and Guattari, illustrating the need to revisit its functionality as a possibility for liberation.