Engaging the public: Toward a political theory of literary journalism

Abstract

My dissertation investigates the role of literary journalism in public life. Each chapter identifies a long-standing convention in traditional journalism and then examines, via war reportage, its alternative in literary journalism. I argue that literary journalism utilizes the elements of subjectivity, narrativity, authority, and a focus on the everyday to offer various interpretive communities a discursive model of information which is personal, engaging, and democratic. I analyze work from Langston Hughes, John Sack, Joan Didion, and Phillip Gourevitch, and offer a theoretical heuristic with which to understand literary journalism's public and political significance. I argue that rhetorical and reportorial characteristics help readers consider alternative and even antagonistic points of view, and they offer both a means and motivation for a more contingent and rational discourse.