Game Theory and Minorities in American Literature

Michael Wainwright is Associate Lecturer of English at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is the author of Darwin and Faulkner's Novels: Evolution and Southern Fiction.

"This is a key book in a newly emerging area, using game theory and related issues of strategic decision-making, polity and political economy, to provide a fresh understanding of key works. With his close attention to detail and rigorous approach, Wainwright offers refreshing and persuasive readings of familiar texts, and opens up innovative contexts for reflecting on the literature of the US." - Stephen Matterson, Professor of US Literature, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland "Games Theory and Minority American Literature will interest literary and game theorists alike. In this companion to his respected Games Theory and Post-War American Literature, Wainwright again demonstrates the potential of games theory to elucidate literary texts in significant ways. Applying ideas of Von Neumann and Morgenstern within a theoretical context informed by Rousseau, Lacan, Maslow, Parfit and others, he convincingly argues for the need to recognize the 'protological prefigurations of social constructions' that inform the struggles of minority American writers such as Frederick Douglas, Harriet Jacobs, and Zora Neale Hurston and majority writers such as Franklin and Faulkner as they write from a minority perspective and, as a result, challenge dominant American notions of self-reliance." - David Rogers, Director, The Kingston Writing School, Kingston University, UK "Game Theory and Minorities in American Literature challenges the conventional wisdom that literary criticism and mathematics are utterly different ways of understanding the world. Indeed, Michael Wainwright's bracing and perceptive study makes fine conversation partners of the two disciplines and opens up new possibilities for reading American literature. The book, also richly informed by aspects of psychoanalysis and political history, reads a number of key figures, including Frederick Douglass, William Faulkner and Toni Morrison with acute care to illuminate patterns of competition, rivalry and collaboration. Wainwright is alert to the politics of injustice and identifies textual strategies used to achieve liberty and equality. It is a dynamic and distinctive contribution to an evolving and exciting field." - Andrew Tate, Reader in Literature, Religion and Aesthetics, Lancaster University, UK

• 1.On Preliminary Matters2.On the Theory of Games of Strategy3.On Game Theory and Aesthetics4.On Douglass and Dialectics5.On Rousseau and Minoritarian Inequality6.On Rousseau's Stag Hunt and Douglass7.On Faulkner's Rousseauan "A Bear Hunt"8.On Minoritarian Stag Hunts9.On Minoritarian Chicken and Majoritarian Bullying