Selected classics of postmodern fiction from the 1960s to the 1990s. Postmodernism is a style characterized by strategies of de-realization, the deliberate unmasking of the fictionality and artificiality of representation that undermines confidence in the referential function of literature as a reliable copy of reality. We will discuss important postmodern sub-genres and stylistic devices, such as metafiction (self-reflexive fiction that exposes its narrative devices); the mise-en-abime (infinite regress); the hyperrreal (the idea of simulated realities); irony, pastiche and the flattening of historicity; postmodern detective fiction. We’ll also review some influential theories of postmodernism, such as the idea that postmodernism is a ‘late’ style arising from the “used-up” nature of literary forms (Barth), or that it is an expression of the cultural logic of late capitalism (Jameson).

Required Readings:
John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse
Ishmael Reed, Flight to Canada
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Paul Auster, City of Glass
Ana Castillo, The Mixquiahuala Letters
Jeannette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry

Bran Nicol, The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction, and a small course reader.