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Abstract
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This research occupies a priority position within contemporary literary and cultural studies because it integrates Foucauldian theory with the analysis of post-9/11 American drama and neoliberal political economy. Scholarship on neoliberalism has demonstrated its profound transformation of democratic institutions and subjectivity. Wendy Brown argues that neoliberal rationality erodes democratic imaginaries and recasts citizenship in economic terms (31–58). David Harvey characterizes neoliberalism as a political project that reorganizes social life around market imperatives (19–38). Despite such theoretical advances, literary studies have not sufficiently examined how contemporary drama articulates these transformations through character, dialogue, and stage form. This dissertation addresses that deficiency by situating Akhtar’s theatre within the analytic of governmentality elaborated by Foucault in The Birth of Biopolitics (226–29).
Moreover, the study responds to ongoing debates about post-9/11 securitization and racialized governance. Judith Butler’s analysis of differential grievability and vulnerability underscores the cultural mechanisms that determine whose lives receive recognition (19–49). Giorgio Agamben’s account of sovereign power clarifies the juridical instability that accompanies states of exception (15–29). By grounding these theoretical insights in close textual analysis, the dissertation demonstrates how drama renders abstract political theories concrete and experientially legible. The project therefore contributes simultaneously to Foucauldian criticism, neoliberal studies, and American theatre scholarship. It establishes that racialized identity and financial abstraction constitute interrelated modalities of power within a shared governmental logic. Such a synthesis not only fills a scholarly lacuna but also clarifies the cultural dynamics that shape contemporary political life.
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