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Title Anatomo-politics and Consumerist Identity: A Postmodern Reading of Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada and Don DeLillo’s White Noise

Author(s) HUMAIRA AKRAM

Abstract In this study, I examine Lauren Wiesberger’s The Devil Wears Prada and Don DeLillo’s White Noise in order to explore the perpetuation of anatomo-politics of the human body. Anatamo-politics is one of the two techniques of bio-power that permeates human life up to the extent of controlling micro processes of its existence. The strategies of postmodern consumerism arguably sustain anatomo-politics of the human body. The study argues that the characters depicted in the selected novels become self-disciplining under the influence of knowledge that normalizes fit and thin body in the name of beauty and health. In this way, the selected novels explorably manifest the disciplines of the human body and the controlled management of their energies and forces. I substantiate this argument by drawing upon Foucault’s notion of anatomo-politics that helps me highlight administration of the individual bodies in the selected texts. Moreover, this project reveals the consumerist strategies embedded in the chosen texts that make consumer products desirable for such bodies and, hence, enhance their subjugation in the contemporary age of postmodern consumerism. I draw upon Jameson’s concept of late capitalism and Baudrillard’s theorizing of simulation with the specific focus on their hegemonic aspect that provide me with the proper conceptual framework to probe the texts for such consumerist strategies. In this regard, I employ Catherine Belsey’s idea of textual analysis as a research method in analyzing the selected texts. Since it is relatively an untapped area, the anatomo-politics perspective of the human body examined in the primary texts highlights the significance of my intervention and is likely to be a contribution in the production of knowledge in the contemporary critical corpus.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2022-03-04

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