＂America First＂: Fear, Memory Activism, and Everyday Life in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America

「美國優先」：《反美陰謀》之恐懼、記憶行動主義與日常生活

廖培真(LIAO Pei-chen)

《中山人文學報》 46期 (2019/01) Pp. 59-77

摘要

Taking cues from critics of alternate history, everyday life history, and affect studies, I argue that embedding his personal memories of anti-Semitism in the 1940s within a fictional framework in which Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt, Philip Roth's The Plot Against America does more than simply impel its readers to know and to try to understand the often neglected anti-Semitic past of the U.S. As a literary counterfactual to ＂illuminate the past through the past,＂ it applies moral judgment to the grand narrative of ＂America First＂ and reveals how fear of white supremacy could become perpetual, like habits, to both the novel's Jewish protagonists and contemporary readers. Unraveling the relationship of fear with both memory and activism, I suggest that The Plot Against America does not merely manifest remembering as a tactic or an act of resistance. Moreover, in a culture of fear, it illuminates the influences of emotions on how one remembers and possible practices of resistance that ordinary individuals can be actively involved in on a small scale and on a daily basis.

關鍵字

The Plot Against America ； America First ； fear ； memory activism ； everyday life ； anti-Semitism

並列摘要

本文援引架空歷史、日常生活史學和情動研究來檢視菲利普．羅斯的小說《反美陰謀》。羅斯以林白在一九四○年總統大選打敗羅斯福為前提來改寫美國歷史，卻又在這樣的虛擬框架中嵌入其童年對反猶太主義的記憶，《反美陰謀》因而所訴求的不僅是讀者對這段經常被遺忘的美國反猶歷史的認識與理解。因為羅斯創作的目的是要「重返過去以闡明過去」，本文主張此架空歷史小說同時也對「美國優先」的巨型敘事提出道德批判，並且表露了小說的猶太主角和當代讀者對白人優先主義如習慣般永無休止的恐懼。本文藉由檢視《反美陰謀》中恐懼與記憶和行動主義之間的關係，探討小說如何彰顯記憶作為抵抗的策略與行動展現。更重要的是，羅斯的小說在恐懼文化中闡明情感對記憶方式的影響，提出其他尋常百姓在日常生活的基礎與有限活動中可積極參與和實踐的抵抗之道。

並列關鍵字

《反美陰謀》 ； 美國優先 ； 恐懼 ； 記憶行動主義 ； 日常生活 ； 反猶太主義

參考文獻

Ahmed, Sara (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge).

Basu, Ann (2015). States of Trial: Manhood in Philip Roth’s Post-War America (New York: Bloomsbury).

Beckett, Lois (2017). “The Year in Nazi Propaganda: Images of White Supremacy in Trump’s America.” The Guardian, 27 Dec. (www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/27/the-year-in-nazi-propaganda-images-of-white-supremacy-in-trumpsamerica).

Brewer, John (2010). “Microhistory and the Histories of Everyday Life.” Cultural and Social History 7.1: 87-109.

Cooper, Alan (2005). “It Can Happen Here, or All in the Family Values: Surviving The Plot Against America.” Derek Parker Royal (ed.): Philip Roth: New Perspectives on an American Author (Westport: Praeger), 241-254.