ENGL 272
American Postmodern Fiction Spring 2020
Division I
Cross-listed AMST 272 / ENGL 272
This is not the current course catalog

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 Heller’s Catch-22. It also serves as a good introduction to the unlikely merging in American fiction of high European post-structuralist postmodernism and low American punk postmodernism. Subsequent books in the course will probably include 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,, Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, and Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.