Literary Research And American Postmodernism

This book is a guide to scholarly research in the field of American postmodern literature, defined as the period between 1950 and 1990 and provide advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars of literature with a comprehensive view of the print and online resources available in literature and related subject areas

Literary Research and British Postmodernism is a guide for researchers of postwar British literature that defines best practices for scholars conducting research in this period. Individual chapters connect the complex relationships between print and multimedia, technological advancements, and the influence of critical theory that converge in postwar British literature.

Literary Research and the Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Eras: Strategies and Sources is a guide to scholarly research in the field of medieval English literature covering the period 450 CE to 1500 CE. Graduate students and scholars researching this period face many challenges: working in two distinct literary traditions, comprehending multiple languages (Old English, Middle English, Latin, Anglo-Norman, and French), knowing the manuscript tradition for a particular title and the research methodologies for discovering and locating primary sources in the print and digital realms, and the awareness of the overlap and assimilation of literary themes with religious, historical, cultural, and political perspectives. The volume presents the best practices for building a foundation of sound scholarship practices in the field of medieval English literature. This volume explores primary and secondary resources, including general literary research guides; types of library catalogs; print and online bibliographies and indexes; scholarly journals and series; manuscripts, archives, and digital collections; genres; tools for understanding Old and Middle English such as dictionaries, lexicons, thesauri, glosses, etymologies, palaeographies, and text mining tools; and Web resources. The final chapter researches the shifting reputation of the poet, Thomas Hoccleve. Given the interdisciplinary nature of medieval studies, an appendix of additional readings in art, history, music, philosophy, religion, science, social sciences, and theater is provided.

Covers American literature during the postwar period.

Jaroslav Kušnír’s book American Fiction: Modernism-Postmodernism, Popular Culture, and Metafiction is a sequel to his previous study on American postmodern fiction entitled Poetika americkej postmodernej prózy: Richard Brautigan and Donald Barthelme [Poetics of American Fiction: Richard Brautigan and Donald Barthelme]. Prešov: Impreso, 2001. It explores various aspects of American postmodernist fiction as manifested in the works by Richard Brautigan, Donald Barthelme and other American postmodernist authors such as Robert Coover, E. L. Doctorow, Kurt Vonnegut and Paul Auster. Analyzing various short stories and novels, the author shows differences between modernist and postmodernist literature in the works of Donald Barthelme; the way postmodern parodies of popular literary genres give a critique of some aspects of American cultural identity and experience (the American Dream, individualism, consumerism); and he also shows different ways postmodern authors such as Robert Coover, Kurt Vonnegut and Paul Auster create metafictional effect as one of the most significant aspects of postmodern literature.

A study of postmodernism and African-American poets.

Literature in Latin America has long been a vehicle for debates over the interpretation of social history, cultural identity, and artistic independence. Indeed, Latin American literature has gained international respect for its ability to present social criticism through works of imaginative creation. In this comprehensive, up-to-the-minute survey of research and opinion by leading Latin American cultural and literary critics, Naomi Lindstrom examines five concepts that are currently the focus of intense debate among Latin American writers and thinkers. Writing in simple, clear terms for both general and specialist readers of Latin American literature, she explores the concepts of autonomy and dependency, postmodernism, literary intellectuals and the mass media, testimonial literature, and gender issues, including gay and lesbian themes. Excerpts (in English) from relevant literary works illustrate each concept, while Lindstrom also traces its passage from the social sciences to literature.

Black Metafiction examines the tradition of self-consciousness in African American literature. It points to the short-comings of theories of metafiction founded on studies of Anglo-American literature. While some literary critics situate metafiction within the domain of postmodernism, others regard it to be as old as storytelling itself. Scholars of African American literature acknowledge it to be a distinguishing feature. Critics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Houston A. Baker, Jr., perceive it as fundamental to the aesthetics of the black vernacutar. Black Metafiction analyzes and evaluates these theories, comparing work by scholars of comparative, Anglo-American, and African American literature. Jablon's study leads to her revision of established theories and provides a model for the evaluation and reformulation of other Eurocentric theories. Jablon begins with a historical overview of theories of metafiction by scholars who specialize in African American literature and Anglo-American literature. She situates metafiction within African American literary history, tracing it from slave narratives to a discussion of ten contemporary novels, including Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar, Leon Forrest's Divine Days, Walter Mosley's Black Betty, Charles Johnson's Middle Passage, Rita Dove's Through the Ivory Gate, Arthur Flowers' Another Good Loving Blues, Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying, Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, Octavia Butter's Parable of the Sower, and Charlotte Watson Sherman's One Dark Body. Among the topics Jablon addresses are the Kunstlerroman and the blues hero; the thematization of art; voice, metanarrative, and the oral tradition; and genres of metafiction.

After the veritable hype concerning postmodernism in the 1980s and early 1990s, when questions about when it began, what it means and which texts it comprises were apt to trigger heated discussions, the excitement has notably cooled down at the turn of the century. Voices are now beginning to be heard which seem to suggest a new episteme in the making which points beyond postmodernism, while it remains at the same time very uncertain whether what appears as newness is not rather a return to traditional concepts, theoretical premises, and authorial practices. Contributors to this volume propose to explore new openings and recent developments in anglophone literatures and cultural theories which engage with issues seen to be central in the construction of a postmodern paradigm, but deal with them in ways that promise new openings or a new Zeitgeist.

In this timely book, Roman de la Campa asks to what degree the Latin America studied in U.S. academies is actually an entity "made in the U.S.A." He argues that there is an ever-increasing gap between the political, theoretical, and financial pressures affecting the U.S. academy and Latin America's own cultural, political, and literary practices. De la Campa focuses on the conduct of Latin American literary criticism in U.S. universities and compares this with the "Latin Americanism" of Latin America itself.

This book engages with the critical decline of postmodernism and newer currents of thinking that have come to the fore, including postcolonialism, feminism, and cultural studies, constituting an exploration of the cultural landscape after the heyday of postmodernism in the West and its profound influence on the Chinese cultural scene. Topics discussed include the prevalent theoretical trends and cultural phenomena in the West in the wake of postmodernism, how these developments have influenced contemporary Chinese literary and cultural criticism, and how Chinese scholars can have an equal dialogue with the dominant Western theorists. The chapters examine critical issues and figures in the fields, including postmodernity and globalization, as well as the theories of Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, and Judith Butler. Taking a comparative and cross-cultural perspective, especially between China and the West, the title also sheds light on the imprint of Western theoretical trends on the literature and culture of contemporary China, exemplified in diasporic writing, cinema, women’s literature, popular culture, and the overall orientation of contemporary Chinese literature. The book will be a critical reference for all levels of reader interested in postmodernism, critical theory, postcolonialism, feminism, cultural studies, comparative and world literature, and contemporary Chinese literature and culture.

Are indeterminancy and relativism the only possible consequences of embracing the uncertainties of the postmodern era? Are other less deconstructive options to be found emmbedded in postmodernism's many ambiguities? In arguing affirmatively to both questions, this study points--in a constructively postmodern way--toward renewal in literary and cultural theory. Divided into two parts, this book first examines the two distinct sources--constructive and deconstructive--of the postmodern attitude. The first, exemplified in the work of Derrida, Lyotard, and Baudrillard, is presented as a reaction against the reductive excesses of 20th-century modernism and is characterized by ambivalent and indeterminate approaches to uncertainty. The second source is more subtly discerned in the rejection by Wittgenstein and Dewey, among others of the Cartesian or modern conception of rationality in favor of more situationally complex, naturalistically grounded accounts of experience. Although the two approaches overlap in their acceptance of uncertainty and complexity, constructive postmodernism is shown to offer more scope for productive and cumulative study of meaning and value. The second part applies the principles embedded in constructive postmodern thinking to the field of literary theory and criticism. The constructively postmodern pursuit of ever more richly observed and detailed, more ordinary and transparent situations is shown to be of particular relevance to literary studies. What precisely does the achievement of a writer like Jane Austen or Henry James represent, if not pointedly detailed observations of densely complex social and interpersonal relations, mediated by a painfully acute and sophisticated sensibility, and imaginatively represented as works of fiction? The answer to this question is presented by exploring the concepts of social and emotional intelligence in the novels of Austen and James among four other novelists.

Literature in Latin America has long been a vehicle for debates over the interpretation of social history, cultural identity, and artistic independence. Indeed, Latin American literature has gained international respect for its ability to present social criticism through works of imaginative creation. In this comprehensive, up-to-the-minute survey of research and opinion by leading Latin American cultural and literary critics, Naomi Lindstrom examines five concepts that are currently the focus of intense debate among Latin American writers and thinkers. Writing in simple, clear terms for both general and specialist readers of Latin American literature, she explores the concepts of autonomy and dependency, postmodernism, literary intellectuals and the mass media, testimonial literature, and gender issues, including gay and lesbian themes. Excerpts (in English) from relevant literary works illustrate each concept, while Lindstrom also traces its passage from the social sciences to literature.

Postmodernity in Latin America contests the prevailing understanding of the relationship between postmodernity and Latin America by focusing on recent developments in Latin American, and particularly Argentine, political and literary culture. While European and North American theorists of postmodernity generally view Latin American fiction without regard for its political and cultural context, Latin Americanists often either uncritically apply the concept of postmodernity to Latin American literature and society or reject it in an equally uncritical fashion. The result has been both a limited understanding of the literature and an impoverished notion of postmodernity. Santiago Colás challenges both of these approaches and corrects their consequent distortions by locating Argentine postmodernity in the cultural dynamics of resistance as it operates within and against local expressions of late capitalism. Focusing on literature, Colás uses Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch to characterize modernity for Latin America as a whole, Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman to identify the transition to a more localized postmodernity, and Ricardo Piglia’s Artificial Respiration to exemplify the cultural coordinates of postmodernity in Argentina. Informed by the cycle of political transformation beginning with the Cuban Revolution, including its effects on Peronism, to the period of dictatorship, and finally to redemocratization, Colás’s examination of this literary progression leads to the reconstruction of three significant moments in the history of Argentina. His analysis provokes both a revised understanding of that history and the recognition that multiple meanings of postmodernity must be understood in ways that incorporate the complexity of regional differences. Offering a new voice in the debate over postmodernity, one that challenges that debate’s leading thinkers, Postmodernity in Latin America will be of particular interest to students of Latin American literature and to scholars in all disciplines concerned with theories of the postmodern.

"This book addresses issues of identity, textual composition, discourse, and history in the later novels of Carlos Fuentes." "Readers familiar with other postmodern narratives will find a guide to reading Fuentes, a recognized innovator of Spanish American fiction. To readers familiar with the novels of the Boom and its considerable scholarship, this study provides a key to understanding Fuentes's interest in questions of an epistemological and ontological nature. This process draws on the various interpretive strategies of postmodernity, resulting in an analysis that contributes both to the body of criticism on Carlos Fuentes, and to the development of an accurate conceptualization of postmodern writing in Spanish America."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Through a series of essays that explore the forms, themes, genres, historical contexts, major authors, and latest critical approaches, A Companion to African American Literature presents a comprehensive chronological overview of African American literature from the eighteenth century to the modern day Examines African American literature from its earliest origins, through the rise of antislavery literature in the decades leading into the Civil War, to the modern development of contemporary African American cultural media, literary aesthetics, and political ideologies Addresses the latest critical and scholarly approaches to African American literature Features essays by leading established literary scholars as well as newer voices