ABSTRACT
This chapter first examines the relationship between narrative, cultural criticism, and post-Sixties narratives. By clarifying the relationship between narrative and ideology, the author points out that narrative itself can function as criticism. Then, by defining the term “post-Sixties narrative” (which has not formally been used before), the author holds that contemporary American cultural criticism features such post-Sixties narratives. Next, drawing on research materials about “decade labeling” in American historic narratives and “the Sixties” tropes in American public life, as well as a 2018 New Yorker article by Louis Menand, “Lessons from the Election of 1968,” which finds there the explanation for Donald Trump’s election triumph in 2016, the author demonstrates that post-Sixties narratives are important paradigms in contemporary American cultural criticism. These narratives work to shape America’s collective memory and to color the national mood, that is to say, the “structure of feeling,” of American society. This chapter serves as both introduction to and theoretical framework of this book.
