Holly Wang

In Lieu of Recovery: Unhinged Women and the Aesthetics of Emotional Extremes

Advisor: David Shumway
Major: Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction
Minor: Gender Studies

Abstract

This project examines the emergence of the "unhinged girl" narrative in contemporary literature, narratives centered on emotionally detached, socially withdrawn or psychologically unstable young women who resist conventional trajectories of recovery or redemption. Through close readings of texts including "My Year of Rest and Relaxation," "Boy Parts" and "The Vegetarian," the thesis investigates how these narratives reflect and negotiate dominant cultural ideologies surrounding gender, mental health and alienation. 

Drawing on feminist theory, affect theory and cultural critique, the study analyzes how aesthetic strategies such as flat narration, formal irony and narrative fragmentation register broader affective conditions of late capitalist society. In theorizing the "unhinged girl" as a culturally resonant literary mode, the project offers a critical framework for understanding how contemporary fiction engages with the emotional and ideological pressures shaping modern subjectivity. 

Bio

I am a senior at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Human-Computer Interaction and Information Systems, with a minor in Gender Studies.  My interdisciplinary academic background informs my research interests in contemporary literature, feminist theory, cultural studies and affect theory. I am particularly interested in how fiction critiques the emotional, social and ideological conditions of late capitalism, especially as they interact with modern subjectivity.

Outside the classroom, I serve as news editor for "The Tartan" and contribute to the "Pittsburgh Review of Books," where I write about literature, politics and culture. I plan to pursue graduate studies in the humanities, with the aim of deepening my engagement wiht literature and critical theory in both academic and public-facing contexts.

In my free time, I enjoy knitting, film photography, visiting art museums, exploring local coffee shops and baking pies.