Postmodernist Fiction

English 5321.501     Summer I, 2012

Professor Paul Cohen                 Office: FH358

Phone: 245-7685                     Email: cohen@txstate.edu

  Office hours: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 3:00-4:00; and by appointment

Course Web site: http://www.english.txstate.edu/cohen_p/postmodern/1.html

DESCRIPTION : This course will work on the question: "What is (or was) postmodernism?"  We'll discuss the ideas of some of the key theorists in the field (e.g., Susan Sontag, Ihab Hassan, Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari), and the works of some of the most accomplished writers of postmodern fiction as we move toward a comprehension of the distinctive characteristics of postwar thought and art.

TEXTBOOKS :            

Thomas Docherty, ed.:                     Postmodernism: A Reader

Jorge Luis Borges:                           Labyrinths

Thomas Pynchon:                            The Crying of Lot 49

Vladimir Nabokov:                          Pale Fire

Italo Calvino:                          If on a winter's night a traveler

Nathaniel Mackey:                         Atet A.D.

Tom McCarthy:                             Remainder

Much supplementary material will be available through an extensive course Web site.

REQUIREMENTS :  You will write two papers on postmodern writing: a shorter one on an assigned topic, due on June 13, and one on a topic of your choice, due on July 2. You will submit the papers electronically. You will write a take-home Final Examination essay due on July 6. The first paper and the Exam will each count as 25% of your course grade, and the long paper will count as 50%.

CALENDAR:

This schedule will definitely change as the course moves on. I will announce upcoming changes in class, and you will be responsible for knowing about them and coming to class prepared.

June 5: Modernism and Postmodernism

June 7: Theory (in Docherty book)
Jean-François Lyotard: "Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?”"  
Fredric Jameson: “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”
Ihab Hassan: "Toward a Concept of Postmodernism"
Jean Baudrillard: "The Evil Demon of Images and The Precession of Simulacra"
Umberto Eco: "The City of Robots"
Andreas Huyssen: "The Search for Tradition."

June 12: James Joyce: Finnegans Wake (excerpt)

June 14: Jorge Luis Borges
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”
“Funes the Memorious”
“The Secret Miracle”
“Kafka and His Precursors”

June 19: Vladimir Nabokov: Pale Fire

June 21: Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49

June 26: Italo Calvino: If on a winter’s night a traveler

June 28: Jorge Luis Borges: “The Garden of Forking Paths”
Nathaniel Mackey: Atet A.D.

July 3: Tom McCarthy: Remainder

July 5: Conceptual Literature

July 6: Final Examination due