Between Meritocracy and the Old Boy Network: Elite Education in Contemporary American Literature

Abstract

This article focuses on the discourse of elite education in the United States. I argue that the discourse generates two dominant topoi—merit and network—in order to make sense of elite education and its socio-political implications. Examining Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons“ (2004) and Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep “(2005) against the backdrop of different positions within the discursive framework, I read literary texts as counter-discourses that provide spaces of subversion and resistance to dominant meanings.