Abstract
In his article "World War I and the Idea of Progress in Powers's Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance" Karsten H. Piep reads Powers's 1985 novel as a critical reexamination of the dynamics and iconography of the early twentieth century that challenges the technological positivism espoused by many U.S. neoconservatives during the 1980s, while insisting on the individual's interpretive powers to discern and release the ever present transformative potentials of history. Situating Three Farmers in the postmodernism debates of the 1980s, Piep argues that the novel succeeds in challenging the idea of history conceived as linear progression, but fails to show how a critical engagement with the past might engender social transformation in the present.
Recommended Citation
Piep, Karsten H.
"World War I and the Idea of Progress in Powers's Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
18.1
(2016):
<https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.2924>
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