History, critique, Utopia: experimental writing in the context of contemporary anglophone literature

This dissertation displays an attempt to come to terms with some of the central questions about experimental writing in contemporary anglophone literature, and to propose an assessment of the status, nature and purpose of experimental writing. The central claim of this thesis is that experimental writing is an emphatic formal expression of the historical preconditions that determine our artistic productions today, and that it responds to these preconditions in a critical and utopian way: experimental writing challenges its own historical preconditions, and points to a state of things beyond them. The arguments of this thesis are developed on the grounds of Theodor W. Adorno’s aesthetics and in readings of three contemporary works of anglophone literature - Lydia Davis's The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, Tom McCarthy's Remainder, and Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude.