Repressive desublimation and the great refusal in Bret Easton Ellis's fiction

In 1968, Herbert Marcuse believed that a Great Refusal was possible, one that would deny the exploitative power of corporate capitalism. Marcuse's vision was never realised. This essay argues that society today is in an advanced state of that which the Frankfurt School termed repressive desublimation and questions whether a liberationary praxis is still possible. It claims that Bret Easton Ellis's fiction choreographs an internalising of the forms of critique that marked 1968 and about which Marcuse writes. It is Ellis's act of double voicing that allows him to develop a duplicitous recalcitrant voice within the state of assimilation and it is double voicing which emerges as the key technique in Ellis's work that effects an ongoing critique in commodity society. Looking at Slavoj iek's recent revisionism of the notion of repressive desublimation, which connects Marxism and psychoanalysis, the essay considers how Ellis's novels, American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park, function to address and reconfigure the relationship between the status of the Marxist fetishised object and the psychoanalytic phobic object in the present-day era of late capitalism. This essay seeks to illuminate how Ellis's fiction, through an involution of Marcuse's political theories, enacts a contemporary refusal from within the state of reification.

Troubled waters: an institutional analysis of ageing Dutch and American waterway infrastructure

Waterways are one of the oldest systems for the transportation of cargo and continue to play a vital role in the economies of some countries. Due to societal change, climate change and the ageing of assets, the conditions influencing the effective functioning of these systems seem to be changing. These changing conditions require measures to renew, adapt or renovate these waterway systems. However, measures with the sole aim of improving navigation conditions have encountered resistance, as the general public, and stakeholders in particular, value these waters in many more ways than navigation alone. Therefore, a more inclusive, integrated approach is required, rather than a sectoral one. Addressing these contemporary challenges requires a shift in the traditional waterway authorities' regimes. The aim of this study is to identify elements in the institutional setting where obstacles and opportunities for a more inclusive approach can be found. Two major waterway systems, the American and the Dutch, have been analyzed using the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to reveal those obstacles and opportunities. The results show that horizontal coordination and a low pay-off for an inclusive approach is particularly problematic. The American case also reveals a promising aspect – mandatory local co-funding for federal navigation projects acts as a stimulus for broad stakeholder involvement. Improving horizontal coordination and seizing opportunities for multifunctional development can open pathways to optimize the value of waterway systems for society.