ENGL 272
American Postmodern Fiction Spring 2013
Division I Writing Skills
Cross-listed AMST 272
This is not the current course catalog

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American fiction took a turn at World War II: the simplest way to name the turn is from modernism to postmodernism. The most obvious mark of postmodern narration is its self-consciousness; postmodern books tend to be about themselves, even when they are most historical or realistic. Already a paradox emerges: why would World War II make narratives more self-reflexive? The first book in the course, and the best for approaching this paradox, is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Subsequent books: Nabokov’s Pale Fire, Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Morrison’s Beloved, DeLillo’s White Noise, Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Johnson’s Jesus’s Son.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3605
Grading: OPG
Requirements/Evaluation: four to five papers (about 20 pp); class participation
Extra Info: not available as Pass/Fail
Prerequisites: a 100-level English Course, or a score of 5 on the AP Examination in English Lit, or a 6 or 7 on the International Baccalaureate exam for international students
Enrollment Preferences: first year students, sophomores, and English majors who have not yet taken a Gateway course
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ENGL; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AMST
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENGL 272 Division I AMST 272 Division II
Attributes: ENGL 200-level Gateway Courses

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