Jean François Lyotard defines the postmodern as “incredulity toward metanarratives.” This term, the “postmodern” has become one of the most problematic and contested terms since the 1970s. This course will grapple with the innovative narrative techniques of “post-War,” “late modern,” “contemporary,” and “postmodern” transformations in narrative in the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.
The years following World War II witnessed conflict with hegemonic authority and a thirst for innovation in style, form, and representation. Issues of identity and representation will be of paramount importance with authors who actively confront histories of systematic oppression and abjection. We will trace developments in poetry from authors like Ginsberg, Plath, Bishop, Lorde, and Rich. Likewise, we will actively engage the postmodern metafictions of Paul Auster. This class will explore the precepts of “literariness” in the late 20th and early 21st century by examining the wealth of narrative forms, including poetry, prose, film, graphic novels, and digital art.
Required texts:
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Parable of the Sower adapted graphic novel (2020) by Octavia Butler and Damian Duffy