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from Part II - Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2025
This chapter traces the development of an economic sublime associated with modern neoclassical economics. A precursor to Fredric Jameson’s postmodern “hysterical sublime,” the sublimity of neoclassical economics derived from the thrilling sense that, through math, economics could access vast and terrifying universal forces, and connect individuals directly to them. However, the most popular expression of the economic sublime was not mathematical but literary, and consisted primarily of naturalist novels that chronicled human encounters with economic laws allegedly so regular, universal, and inexorable that they amounted to a new branch of physics. Through readings of novels by Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, and Frank Norris, this chapter shows how literature helped train readers to understand neoclassical economics not just as natural, but also as an indispensable source of romantic pleasure.
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