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EL 449W | Postmodern Lit and Culture

(Fall 2015)

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Postmodern Literature and Culture is a writing intensive (and reading intensive) course that looks at postmodernism as a literary and cultural phenomenon, addressing trends in fiction after World War II and tracking the cultural dilemmas to which the writers we call postmodern are responding. We will investigate literary postmodernism as a historically grounded set of literary, aesthetic, and philosophical tendencies, arising in response to both aesthetic Modernism and the events of the mid-20th century. Along the way you  will become familiar with (and read) some of the major theorists of postmodernism, and you will develop critical vocabulary helpful for understanding and commenting on those theorists, the postmodern culture they theorize, and the postmodern texts we read together. 

Major Writing/Composing Assignments to Anticipate



---- The Schedule ----

All major assignments are included, but minor assignments and readings may be added. Please note that the schedule may shift in transit due to the contingencies of our semester, the onset of entropy, or unprecedented epistemic disruptions. Don’t panic.

Week 1 (Sep. 9 and 11)

Note that it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and get signed up for the wiki.

Note that you're going to have to commit to an author for research at the end of next week. Spend some time learning about these folks.

  • Day 1: No Class
  • Day 2: Course Introduction
  • Day 3: from Postmodern Debates: Introduction (Simon Malpas); “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” (Fredric Jameson); “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?” (Jean Francois Lyotard) + from Smith: "Is the Devil from Paris? Postmodernism and the Church" (Smith)
  • Due: Film Screening Survey

Week 2 (Sep. 14, 16, and 18)

Note: Remember that you need to either PRINT online texts or have some reasonable way (Kindle? iPad? Laptop?) to view your electronic copy in class. Tiny, tiny phone screens don't really count in this context.

Due Monday: Self intro on course wiki before class.

Due Friday: Sign up for research subject (on wiki) before Friday's class. (Sign up no earlier than Thursday at 7:00 am.)

  • Day 1: “Tlon: Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “The Library of Babel,” “On Exactitude in Science,” “Borges and I” (Jorge Luis Borges); “Anecdote of the Jar,” “Metaphors of a Magnifico” (Wallace Stevens)
  • Due: Self Intro on Wiki
  • Day 2: John Barth: “Lost in the Funhouse,” “Frame Story"
  • Day 3: John Barth: “The Literature of Replenishment”
  • Due: Claim Author on Wiki

Week 3 (Sep. 21, 23, and 25) <<Consider 2-day read + some JKA Smith?

Due Friday @5:00: Proof and Justification of *3* ILL Requests (Inquiry Project)

Due Friday @5:00: Critical Response #1 (Borges, Barth, or Slaughterhouse)

  • Day 1: Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut) (Chapters 1-4)
  • Day 2: Slaughterhouse Five (Chapters 5-6)
  • Day 3: Slaughterhouse Five (Chapters 7-10)
  • Due: Proof of ILL + Critical Response #1
Notes on the way William F. Gibson has used the word "evert" in his fiction: here.

Week 4 (Sep. 28 and 30, Oct. 2)

Due: Nothing is officially due this week, beyond reading, but you’re digging yourself a deep, dark hole if you’re not actively moving forward your research agenda for the Inquiry Project.

  • Day 1: from Postmodern Debates: "The Gulf War: Is It Really Happening?" (Jean Baudrillard) + (Online) “Liar, Liar Pants on Fire” (Errol Morris)
  • Day 2: Postmodern Debates: "Deconstruction and Actuality" (Jacques Derrida) + from Smith: "Nothing Outside the Text? Derrida, Deconstruction, and Scripture" (Smith)
  • Day 3: Catch Up / "The Gernsback Continuum" (William F. Gibson)

Week 5 (Oct. 5, 7, and 9)

Due Friday @5:00: Substantial Research Using Screenr (Inquiry Project)

Week 6 (Oct. 12, 14, and 16)

Due Friday @5:00: Critical Response #2 (Lot 49 or Dellilo)

  • Day 1: "Midnight in Dostoevsky" (Don Dellilo)
  • Day 2: "The Airborne Toxic Event" (from White Noise) (Don Dellilo)
  • Day 3: fro  Postmodern Debates: "Ideology, Discourse and the Problems of 'Post-Marxism'" (Terry Eagleton); "We Anti-Representationalists" (Richard Rorty); Due: Critical Response #2
Midterm Review Slides: Here

And here's a link to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms and other Oxford reference works, which may be helpful. [CHECK LINK]

Week 7 (Oct. 19, 21, and 23)

Friday, Class Time: Midterm, Essay Sections Due by 5:00

  • Day 1: Catch Up / George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” + from Smith: "Where Have All the Metanarratives Gone? Lyotard, Postmodernism, and the Christian Story" (Smith)
  • MONDAY or TUESDAY Evening:
    Film Screening: Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color
  • Day 2: Film Discussion
  • Day 3: MIDTERM

Week 8 (Oct. 26 and 28)

Due MONDAY@5:00: Inquiry Project. Extensions negotiable for those with good reasons.

  • Day 1: from Smith: "Power/Knowledge/Discipline: Foucault and the Possibilities of a Postmodern Church" (Smith) + Due: Inquiry Project
  • Day 2: Plantinga: "Postmodernism and Pluralism," pp 422-37 (Handout)
  • Day 3: No Class: Fall Break

Week 9 (Nov. 4 and 6)

Due Friday @5:00: Initial Claim for Critical Analysis (Critical Analysis)

  • Day 1: No Class: Fall Break
  • Day 2: Essays + The America Play (Suzan-Lori Parks)
  • Day 3: Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (Suzan-Lori Parks); Due: Initial Claim (Critical Analysis)

Week 10 (Nov. 9, 11, and 13)

Are you Working on Your Critical Analysis? If Not, Why Not? Work on Your Analysis!

  • Day 1: Loon Lake (E. L. Doctorow), To Page 93 ("...hand lifted too late as the signal for the engagement to begin")
  • Day 2: Loon Lake, To Page 174 ("The only thing I haven't seen her do is sew the American flag!")
  • Day 3: Loon Lake, To End

Week 11 (Nov. 16, 18, and 20)

Due Monday, Class Time: Middle Paragraph (Critical Analysis) + "Corpus" Account (Critical Analysis)

Due Friday @5:00: Middle Paragraph Critique + Middle Paragraph Critiqued

  • Day 1: "Postmodernism and Feminisms" (Linda Hutcheon); "Gender Trouble: From Parody to Politics" (Judith Butler)
  • Due: Middle Paragraph and "Corpus" Account
  • Day 2: from Postmodern Debates: "Postmodern Blackness" (bell hooks)  + "Locations of Culture: The Postcolonial and the PoMo" (Homi K. Bhabha)
  • Day 3: "Subjectivity, Ethics, Politics: Learning to Live Without the Subject" (Jane Flax)
  • Due: Middle Paragraph Critique/Critiqued

Week 12 (Nov. 23)

Critical Analysis! Work on It! Time is Flying!

Due Friday @5:00: Any (Optional) Revised Critical Responses (See Revision Guidelines)

  • Day 1: Faculty Panel on “PoMo, Epistemic Humility, and Intellectual Courage” (Prep reading from Plantinga and/or Smith, TBA.)
  • Day 2: No Class: Thanksgiving Break
  • Day 3: No Class: Thanksgiving Break

Week 13 (Nov. 30, Dec. 2 and 4)

Due Monday @5:00: Critical Analysis

(Deadline May Be Extended to the Very Moment You Leave for Break, with Permission)

  • Day 1: Pale Fire (Vladimir Nabokov) (Introduction + 130 Lines of Poem + Associated Commentary)
  • Day 2: Pale Fire (Finish Canto 2 + Associated Commentary)
  • Day 3: Pale Fire (The Rest of It); Due: Any (Optional) Revised Critical Responses

Week 14 (Dec. 7, 9, and 11)

Due Friday @5:00): Reflective Response (Inc. Reading of Parks, Loon Lake, Pale Fire, or NY Trilogy)

  • Day 1: City of Glass (from The New York Trilogy) (Paul Auster)
  • Day 2: Ghosts (from The New York Trilogy); Due: Critical Analysis (Extended Deadline)
  • Day 3: The Locked Room (from The New York Trilogy); Due: Reflective Response (Or Monday, and It's Optional)

Week 15 (Dec. 14 + Final)

Due Monday @ Class: Your Take: Five Big Ideas of PoMo and Five Big Aesthetic Traits

  • Day 1: TBA / Hypertexts, TBA. Probably Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story
  • Final/Exam 2: Thursday, December 17, 3:30-5:30 pm


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