Envisioning the (W)hole World “Behind Things”: Denying Otherness in American Beauty

Vincent Hausmann is an assistant professor of English at Furman University, where he teaches film and theory. The present article forms part of a book-length study of relations between literature, the visual arts, and critical theory. He has published on Bernardo Bertolucci, Joseph Conrad, and Paul Bowles, and coedits Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature.