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EL68B: Postmodern Fictions
Instructor: Naz Bulamur
E-mail: naz.bulamur@boun.edu.tr
Schedule: F 6 7 8 (TB 480)
Office: TB 524
Office Hours: TBA
Course Description:
Fiction constitutes a way of looking at the world. ... Realistic fiction presupposed
chronological time as the medium of a plotted narrative, an irreducible individual
psyche as the subject of its characterization, and, above all, the ultimate, concrete
reality of things as the object and rationale of its description. In the world of postrealism, however, all of these absolutes have become absolutely problematic.
The contemporary writer--the writer who is acutely in touch with the life of
which he is part--is forced to start from scratch: Reality doesn’t exist, time doesn’t
exist, personality doesn’t exist. God was the omniscient author, but he died; now
no one knows the plot, and since our reality lacks the sanction of a creator, there’s
no guarantee of the authenticity of the received version. Time is reduced to presence,
the series of discontinuous moments. Time is no longer purposive, and so there is no
destiny, only chance. Reality is, simply, our experience, and objectivity is, of course,
an illusion. ... In view of these annihilations, it should be no surprise that literature,
also, does not exist--how could it? There is only reading and writing, which are
things we do, like eating and making love, to pass the time, ways of maintaining a
considered boredom in the face of the abyss.
Not to mention a series of overwhelming social dislocations.
Ronald Sukenick, The Death of the Novel and Other Stories (1969)
This course will examine postmodern fictions written in a period beginning in the 1960’s
continuing to the present. We could also call such texts as ‘metafictions’--that is, texts which
foreground, even insist, on their textual status. We will examine how experimental novels lay
bare their own fictionality, challenge our traditional reading strategies, and also blur boundaries
between story telling and truth telling. For example, the works of Kurt Vonnegut and Theresa
Cha imply that history, like fiction, is not objective, and that both storytellers and historians
narrate selective accounts of the past. Autobiography, story, theory, and history are merged in
their experimental texts. The study of postmodern fictions will also enable us to explore how
contemporary writers use innovative narrative techniques to reflect on ideologies of race and
gender, and narrate historical events such as World War Two and the Japanese occupation of
Korea. With Cha, Maso, and Morrison, we will consider whether women ‘do’ ‘postmodernism’
differently and discuss how they experiment with fiction. Essays from postmodern theorists—
Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Susan Sontag, Hélène Cixous, Bell Hooks—will compliment
and enrich our discussions of the novels.
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Schedule of Readings: Please note that class content and course policies are subject to
modification. I might take out some texts and/or assign a few additional ones. I will notify you of
any changes in class. The scanned copies of the novels will be available at the Library Copy
Center.
Week 1, Oct.2:
Introduction to Postmodern Fiction
Week 2, Oct. 9:
Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”
Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler
Week 3, Oct. 16:
Historiographic Metafiction: Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
Week 4, Oct. 23:
Postmodern Detective Fiction: Paul Auster, City of Glass
Week 5, Oct. 30:
Auster cont.
Week 6, Nov. 6:
Text and Image: Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations
Roland Barthes, “The Photographic Message”
Susan Sontag, from On Photography
Lance Olsen, Girl Imagined by Chance
Week 7, Nov. 13:
TBA
Week 8, Nov. 20:
Olsen cont.
Week 9, Nov. 27:
Postmodern Feminism: Hélène Cixous, from Sorties
Carole Maso, The Art Lover
Week 10, Dec. 4:
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
Week 11, Dec.11:
Cha cont., bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness”
Week 12, Dec. 18:
Toni Morrison, Jazz
Week 13, Dec. 25:
10 minute presentation of seminar papers
REQUIREMENTS:
Class Participation: You should read the assigned texts before coming to class. Be prepared to
discuss your various thoughts and questions about the readings. The quality of discussions will
depend on what each of you can contribute, how well you make the discussions “work” as
collective attempts to interpret the texts.
Presentations: You will be responsible to discuss the novel of your choice within a theoretical
framework, and to generate a subsequent discussion for at least thirty minutes. Please refer to
specific pages to illustrate your arguments.
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Response Papers should not exceed one single-spaced page (approximately 750 words). Avoid
plot summaries and don’t cover all the topics you are interested in. Instead, choose ONE idea or
an issue that you think is important and give examples from the text to support your argument.
Papers should have a controlling purpose supported by textual evidence. This is not an essay
assignment! So you don’t need one paragraph long introduction and conclusion.
Term Paper: One of the response papers or your presentation can be turned into the final essay,
which should have a specific argument supported by textual evidence. Situate your discussion of
the novel(s) of your choice within a theoretical framework. Papers should be double spaced, with
at least one-inch margins on all sides, and with the pages stapled together at the top left hand
corner. Use 12 point Times New Roman when printing your papers.
Suggested Reading:
1. Federman, Raymond. Critifiction: Postmodern Essays. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1993.
2. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York:
Routledge, 1988.
3. McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 1987.
4. Sukenick, Ronald. Narralogues: truth in fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press,
2000.
5. Barthes, Roland. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes. Trans. Richard Howard. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994.
6. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman. New
York: Semiotext[e], 1983.
7. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Trans. Richard
Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.
8. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge, 1999.
9. Cixous, Hélène, and Catherine Clément. The Newly Born Woman. Trans. Betsy Wing.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
10. Deleuze, Gilles, and Claire Parnet. Dialogues II. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara
Habberjam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
11. Derrida, Jacques. Spurs Nietzsche’s Styles. Trans. Barbara Harlow. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1979.
12. Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.”
Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. Ed. Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh. London: Edward
Arnold, 1989. 149-165.
13. Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
14. Lacan, Jacques. “The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious.” Yale French Studies 36/37
(1966): 112-147.
15. Lyotard, Jean-François, and Jean-Loup Thébaud. Just Gaming. Trans. Wlad Godzich.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
16. Trinh T., Minh-ha. Woman Native Other. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
17. Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 1999.