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KIRA BRAHAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISHTHE TROUBLE WITH INDIVIDUALISM: SOCIAL BEING IN LE GUIN AND DELANY (72 pp.)Advisor: Kevin Floyd This thesis examines four works of speculative fiction: The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand and Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany. It also considers at length the early works of Karl Marx and his dialectical method. I propose that the societies imagined in the works of Le Guin and Delany challenge the concept of individualism as proposed by capitalist ideology and provide productive ways in which to consider the Marxian philosophy of the individual as social being. I argue that individualism as an abstract concept is damaging to the substantive individuality which is formed only through the real interaction involved in the construction of communal identities. This thesis seeks to combat misunderstandings concerning the leveling effects of communal identity by examining the ways in which the texts considered present the individual as simultaneously unique and communal in nature. In presenting alternative understandings of individuality, these texts substantially challenge established norms concerning the relationship of the individual to labor, political systems, domestic life, and her own sexuality. |