Cirrus@Austlit

The term Postmodernism, to quote Ihab Hassan, describes an endlessly contested category. This segment will attempt to demystify this recent historical and cultural moment by examining fertile literary texts that demonstrate, propose or partake of Postmodern elements. We will consider numerous elements of Postmodern theory as they relate to literary and wider cultural concerns, and we will examine the ways in which the set novels and their writers demonstrate a playfulness and experimentation that entails genre subversion, intertextuality, socio-political critique and satire.

Our central theoretical writings will be drawn from writers including Linda Hutcheon, Umberto Eco, Richard Rorty, and Ihab Hassan. These readings will be positioned in order to render comprehensible the unwieldy theoretical debate that Postmodernism has become. Crucial concepts will include: the function and effects of intertextuality, the dissolving of conceptual boundaries between high art and low art, and the function of parody in social critique.