American literary culture during the post WWII decades saw the rise of a new wave of supposedly avant-gardist writing styles and corresponding literary manifestos that we nowadays tend to associate with the conceptual armatures of postmodernism. Despite their very obvious differences, many of the authors dominating the literary field during this period developed a new interest in assessing social and historical realities from potentially subversive artistic and political standpoints. This course will take a particular look at the ways historical fiction developed in the wake of or in response to American literary postmodernism. Examining novels by Norman Mailer, E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison and Philip Roth, we will acquaint ourselves with the multiple modes of writing history, e.g. historiographic metafiction, new journalism, neo-realism, or documentary fiction, available during this time span and contextualize these literary formats within the aesthetic, social and political contexts of their time. (e.g. post-War Counter Culture, Vietnam, Minority Movements, Reagan’s 1980s, the end of the Cold War). In that sense, this course is as much about a particular type of American literature as it is about American culture and politics from the 1950s to the 1990s.

In addition to our weekly readings, there will two essay assignments and you will have to submit one short position paper based on a session of your choice.

Please obtain the following four novels:

Norman Mailer: The Armies of the Night (ISBN: 978-0452272798)

E.L. Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (ISBN: 978-0141188188)

Toni Morrison: Beloved (ISBN: 978-0099760115)

Philip Roth: The American Pastoral (ISBN: 978-0099771814)