Catherine Flay

Bio: Catherine Flay is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Opposition (politics) & Counterculture. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 24 citations.

After the counterculture: American capitalism, power, and opposition in Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon

Abstract: Although Thomas Pynchon has continued to publish long after the postwar American countercultural era, his politics are critically characterized in relation to that movement's values. The dominant critical positions associate power with rationalism and functionality, and political opposition with creativity and pleasure, positioning Pynchon's novels at a politicized intersection between postmodernism and the counterculture. This article problematizes this dominant critical position, taking Mason & Dixon (1997) as exemplary of Pynchon's reconsideration of the nature of power and potential opposition to it in response to the countercultural movement's failures and successes, and to developments in capitalist social organization in the 1980s.

Critical Literature Review

Abstract: Q: Why do a review of the literature? 1. As a way to frame and focus a research project  When research questions are formed without sustained reference to the literature, the study is likely to be marred by 1. Naïve research instruments that lack conceptual underpinnings 2. Problems with sense-making because the researcher is not alert to themes that may be identifiable 3. Problems with claims-making because the researcher lacks the knowledge to state its significance for theory, policy or practice.  Knowledge of the literature can help: 1. Tighten research questions 2. Enhance conceptual sensitivity 3. Provide a source for making comparisons 4. Provide a cache of descriptive data 5. Provide questions for initial observations and interviews 6. Stimulate questions during the analysis 7. Suggest areas for theoretical sampling 8. Confirm findings, or, findings can be used to show where current literature is incorrect, simplistic, or partial 9. Model ways of making claims about the possible significance of your work