Reacting to the horrors of World War II and the period of decolonization, postmodernism has been questioning the humanistic assumptions of modernism while extending and sometimes transforming the earlier period’s avant-garde techniques through such currents as the new novel, absurdism, minimalism, magic realism, etc. Each offering of this course will study postmodern literature and culture from a specific perspective.
Summer 2011: Milich (10A)
Summer 2012: Milich (2A)
What is Postmodernism?
Fredric Jameson once described postmodernism as "the effort to take the temperature of the age without instruments and in a situation in which we are not even sure there is so coherent a thing as an 'age', or 'zeitgeist' any longer." By way of elucidating the key texts and concepts of modern and postmodern theory (enhanced with some literary and cinematic examples), this seminar aims at understanding the characteristics of the two eras and movements. (LIT/W)
