POSTMODERNISM: THEORY AND FICTION
ENGLISH 420 / 580, SUMMER II 2009
TR 6:00-8:50 P.M.

Intructor: Christine Harrison

This course introduces students to debates about the nature and value of postmodernism. The course begins with an examination of the central philosophical and sociological positions within postmodern debates, and then moves on to look at the definitions of postmodernist fiction they have helped to foster. Major areas of postmodern interest and postmodern genres will be examined, and the interactions of postmodernism with postcolonial and gender theory will also be explored. All issues will be discussed in relation to works of fiction that have proved to be focal points for postmodern analyses over the past thirty years. These novels and short stories are international in scope, comprising works by American, British, Canadian, Irish and South African writers.

Reading List

• J. M. Coetzee, Foe
• Donald Barthelme, The Dead Father
• Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
• John Banville, The Newton Letter
• Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor
• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
• Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber