CLS2790

Postmodernism and the novel

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

8 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives On successful completion of this subject, students will have become acquainted with approaches to the study of postmodern literary and other artistic texts (music, film, painting etc.), based on philosophical, semiotic and psychoanalytic models, privileged by poststructural critical theory. With the aid of this knowledge, students will be able to undertake independent deconstructive analyses of texts.

Synopsis The subject will focus on the dominant themes and motifs in contemporary Australian, American and European fiction in order to answer the question: what is postmodernism? The subject will raise issues such as the relationship of postmodernism to its antecedents in European literature and culture, the place of the novel in the contemporary critical debate, and the relationship of narrative to knowledge and the legitimation of meaning. Various aspects of the contemporary novel, such as the `exotic,' the `erotic' and the `shocking,' will be examined in concrete textual analysis and in the context of the new poetics of `magic realism,' aesthetic pluralism and a `zero' subject.

Assessment One seminar paper (1500 words): 25%
* Essay (3000 words): 45%
* Test (90 minutes): 30%

Prescribed texts

Bellow S More die of heartbreak Penguin, 1988
Bitov A Pushkin house Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 1987
Blanchot M Madness of the day Station Hill, 1981
Eco U The name of the rose Picador, 1987
Foucault M Foucault/Blanchot Zone Books, 1987
Hall R Captivity captive McPhee Gribble, 1988
Kis D Hourglass Farrar Strauss and Giroux
Pavic M The dictionary of the Khazars Knopf, 1988
Scepanovic B Mouth full of earth Longship, 1980
Suskind P Perfume Penguin, 1987

Recommended texts

Baudrillard J Selected writings Polity Press, 1992
Huyssen A After the great divide: Modernism, mass culture, postmodernism Bloomington, 1986
Jameson F Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism Verso, 1988
Lyotard J-F The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge Manchester U P, 1989
Milner A and others (eds) Postmodern conditions Berg, 1990