Cultivating a Desire to Become “Not-Something”: Lauren Berlant, the Idioms of the Ordinary, and the Kinetic Temporality of the “Nearly Utopian”

Abstract

Based on a close reading of The Female Complaint, this article details the larger theoretical and political stakes of Lauren Berlant's inquiry into the appeal of “the normal” as set forth in the genre of the sentimental. The article analyzes Berlant's complex account of how the sentimental works for its female audience and, by focusing on two of the key concepts she uses, “the nearly utopian” and “the not-something,” explores why Berlant places process, ceaseless movement, and change at the heart of her argument. The article argues that Berlant seeks to imagine a non-reified, dynamic, open-ended orientation to the world; one that would build on theoretical knowledge to intervene politically in the ordinary of daily living.

Keywords:

• The Sentimental
• The Nearly Utopian
• Normativity
• The Female Complaint

Notes

1. Lauren Berlant, “The Compulsion to Repeat Femininity,” in Giving Ground: The Politics of Propinquity, ed. Joan Copjec and Michael Sorkin (New York: Verso Press, 1999), 224.

2. Lauren Berlant, The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), x. This is Berlant's description of the project of her three books, The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997); and The Female Complaint.

3. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 5–13.

4. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, ix.

5. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 6.

6. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 10.

7. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 5.

8. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 266.

9. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 4.

10. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 207.

11. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 5.

12. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 169.

13. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 35.

14. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 255.

15. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 167.

16. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 269.

17. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 25.

18. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 292.

19. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 255.

20. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 261.

21. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 24.

22. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 266, my emphasis.

23. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 213.

24. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 272.

25. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 259.

26. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 261.

27. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 273.

28. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 262, my emphasis.

29. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 268.

30. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 272.

31. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 213.

32. Although she elaborates on the concept of the “intimate public” throughout her book, Berlant introduces it and situates it with respect to other discussions of the public sphere as well as counterpublics. See The Female Complaint, 268.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janice A. Radway

Janice A. Radway is the Walter Dill Scott Professor of Communication and Professor of American Studies and Gender Studies at Northwestern University. She is past president of the American Studies Association and the author of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (University of North Carolina Press, 1984); and A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire (University of North Carolina Press, 1997). She is co-editor of Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880–1940, vol. 4 of A History of the Book in America (with Carl Kaestle, University of North Carolina Press, 2009); and American Studies: An Anthology (with Kevin Gaines, Barry Shank, and Penny Von Eschen, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). She is currently working on an oral history of girls, zines, and their afterlives