Upward Mobility and the Common Good: Toward a Literary History of the Welfare State

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Bruce Robbins

Upward Mobility and the Common Good

Toward a Literary History of the Welfare State

Bruce Robbins

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English

Princeton University Press
23 March 2010

Film theory & criticism; Literature: history & criticism; Literary studies: general; Social mobility; Social welfare & social services; Central government policies

We think we know what upward mobility stories are about--virtuous striving justly rewarded, or unprincipled social climbing regrettably unpunished. Either way, these stories seem obviously concerned with the self-making of self-reliant individuals rather than with any collective interest. In Upward Mobility and the Common Good, Bruce Robbins completely overturns these assumptions to expose a hidden tradition of erotic social interdependence at the heart of the literary canon. Reinterpreting novels by figures such as Balzac, Stendhal, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, Dreiser, Wells, Doctorow, and Ishiguro, along with a number of films, Robbins shows how deeply the material and erotic desires of upwardly mobile characters are intertwined with the aid they receive from some sort of benefactor or mentor. In his view, Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs becomes a key figure of social mobility in our time. Robbins argues that passionate and ambiguous relationships (like that between Lecter and Clarice Starling) carry the upward mobility story far from anyone's simple self-interest, whether the protagonist's or the mentor's.

Robbins concludes that upward mobility stories have paradoxically helped American and European society make the transition from an ethic of individual responsibility to one of collective accountability, a shift that made the welfare state possible, but that also helps account for society's fascination with cases of sexual abuse and harassment by figures of authority.

By: Bruce Robbins
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780691146638
ISBN 10: 0691146632
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 23 March 2010
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

"PREFACE: Someone Else's Life ix INTRODUCTION: The Fairy Godmother 1 ""Advancement, of course"" 1 ""I don't want to be patronised"" 10 Description of the Chapters 17 CHAPTER ONE: Erotic Patronage: Rousseau, Constant, Balzac, Stendhal 22 Older Women 22 Interest, Disinterest, and Boredom 32 The Acquisition of the Donor 38 ""... something a bit like love"" 50 CHAPTER TWO: How to Be a Benefactor without Any Money 55 ""My brother's body lies dead and naked ..."" 55 Saving Boys: Horatio Alger 67 ""I wouldn't keep a pig in it myself"": Great Expectations 73 CHAPTER THREE: ""It's not your fault"": Therapy and Irresponsibility from Dreiser to Doctorow 86 Styles of Radical Antistatism: D. A. Miller and Christopher Lasch 86 Loyalty and Blame in Dreiser's The Financier 96 ""... take hospitals, the cops and garbage collection"": Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? 109 ""I like ... to be reliable"": E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate 117 CHAPTER FOUR: A Portrait of the Artist as a Rentier 127 ""Where are your nobles now?"": Bohemia in Kipps, My Brilliant Career, and Trilby 127 ""I don't think I should be unhappy in the workhouse"": George Gissing, Perry Anderson, and the Unproductive Classes 136 ""You're a Town Hall wallah, aren't you?"": Pygmalion and Room at the Top 145 CHAPTER FIVE: The Health Visitor 158 Dumpy: Carolyn Steedman's Landscape for a Good Woman 158 Personal: Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory 167 Help: Tillie Olsen's ""I Stand Here Ironing"" and Alan Sillitoe's ""The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner"" 179 ""I hate lawyers. I just work for them"": Erin Brockovich 186 CHAPTER SIX: On the Persistence of Anger in the Institutions of Caring 190 Anger 190 Caring: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go 199 Rising in Sociology: Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Willis, and Richard Sennett 210 Coda: Anger, Caring, and Merit 229 CONCLUSION: The Luck of Birth and the International Division of Labor 232 Notes 245 Index 289"

Bruce Robbins is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. His many books include Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress and The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below.

Reviews for Upward Mobility and the Common Good: Toward a Literary History of the Welfare State

Bruce Robbins's powerful case ... is that every successfully self-bettering individual relies upon others, and that the limit example of such dependence is embodied in the welfare state. Modern Language Quarterly Robbins's book makes a timely appearance, given the current interest in immigration and class mobility, especially in the U.S. Robbins carefully distinguishes his study of upward mobility stories, both fiction and nonfiction, from other work on the subject...Robbins's style is readable and energetic; his brisk, lucid analyses flow. His notes are informative, offering full publishing information about texts he used in researching and writing this interesting book. -- J.A. Dompkowski Choice [I]n its method and its claims, this highly original, elegantly written book deserves a wide audience; in its effort to recast our understanding of the (class) politics of American literary history, it merits the deepest interest of readers of these pages. -- Lori Merish American Literary History For some time upward mobility stories have been a pervasive element of U.S. political culture. This is the best book around for understanding the complexities of how they work. -- Evan Watkins Novel Upward Mobility and the Common Good is an original and important treatment of a crucially important topic. -- Dan Bivona Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net Robbins' Upward Mobility shows us what literary criticism, at its very best, can do... [He] throws into relief what had been an overlooked line of argument in other critics' works. -- Amanda Claybaugh The Minnesota Review [A] groundbreaking work of political literary criticism... His discussion of sociology as a combat sport, focused on the upward-mobility narratives of several distinguished sociologists, and on lowly origins as cultural capital, makes trenchant reading... [O]ne of the more important books of the decade. -- Judie Newman Journal of American Studies