Unreadable Spies: Identity, Media, and Modernism in the Work of Joseph Conrad
Journal: TSpace
Year: 2023

This thesis explores how Joseph Conrad’s spy fictions embody and express the coalescing paradigm shifts of migration, technology, nation building, and espionage at the turn of the twentieth century. Conrad’s texts ranging from 1906 to 1911 form a collection preoccupied with surveillance, espionage, and geopolitical conflict. The short stories “The Informer” and “The Anarchist” from A Set of Six along with the novels, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes, form what I coin as Conrad’s spy saga.