Literary materialism: The application of literary models of analysis to non-literary phenomena

Over the last hundred years, literary studies has been particularly adept at incorporating the critical techniques of fields as diverse as economics and psychoanalysis into studies of literature. However, literary techniques of analysis specific to the study of literature have not been widely accepted by other fields. Specifically, the literary techniques of rereading, close reading and the resistance to solutions have been isolated to literary studies and related fields in the humanities. The purpose of this project is to explore the possibilities and implications of applying literary techniques of analysis to a wide range of non-literary fields.; In order to understand and overcome the resistance to the broader adoption of literary techniques of analysis, I address the specific reservations voiced by a range of social critics. The central concern of these critics has been a perceived disjunction between the material nature of the 'real' world and the non-material nature of literary texts. Using examples from literature, economics, and art, I address these reservations and develop an expanded sense of the material and the literary that allows them to function together.; The results of my project demonstrate that the barriers to the application of literary analysis have been exaggerated and, therefore, literary techniques can be applied outside of fields traditionally concerned with understanding literature. A reconception of the material through literary techniques can generate better results in some instances than more strictly drawn materially based methods of analysis. Finally, I conclude that there is an unique ethical dimension to literary analysis that is often lacking in more traditional critical systems.