The Misinterpellated Subject

Abstract

James R. Martel complicates Louis Althusser's theory of interpellation, using historical and literary analyses ranging from the Haitian Revolution to Ta-Nehisi Coates to examine the political and revolutionary potential inherent in the instances when people heed the state's call that was not meant for them. From "Hey, you there!" to "Wait up!" : the workings (and unworkings) of interpellation -- "Men are born free and equal in rights" : historical examples of interpellation and misinterpellation -- "Tiens, un nègre" : Fanon and the refusal of colonial subjectivity -- "[A person] is something that shall be overcome" : the misinterpellated messiah, or how Nietzsche saves us from salvation -- "Come, come!" : Bartleby and Lily Briscoe as Nietzschean subjects -- "Consent to not be a single being" : resisting identity, confronting the law in Kafka's Amerika, Ellison's Invisible man, and Coates's Between the world and me -- "I can believe" : breaking the circuits of interpellation in Von Trier's Breaking the waves.