Course Calendar

WEEK 1 // JANUARY 21

• Deducing Postmodernism

WEEK 2 // JANUARY 28

• Cage, John. “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) Continued, 1970-71.” New Literary History 3.1 (1971): 201-214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/468388 (on-campus link)
• Hassan, Ihab. “POSTmodernISM.” New Literary History 3.1 (1971): 5-30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/468378 (on-campus link)
• Selected Short Stories

WEEK 3 // FEBRUARY 4

• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
• Holquist, Michael. “Whodunit and Other Questions: Metaphysical Detective Stories in Post-War Fiction.” New Literary History 3.1 (1971): 135-156. http://www.jstor.org/stable/468384 (on-campus link)
• Jameson, Fredic. “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” New Left Review 146 (1984): 59-92. http://www.newleftreview.org.mutex.gmu.edu/?view=726 (on-campus link)

WEEK 4 // FEBRUARY 11

• Ursula Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
• Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp. 39-65. (e-reserve)

WEEK 5 // FEBRUARY 18

• Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces.” Trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16.1 (1986): 22-27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/464648
• Baudrillard, Jean. “Simulations and Simulacra” from Selected Writings. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988, pp. 166-184 (e-reserve)
• Mark Z. Danielewksi, House of Leaves, Forward, Introduction, and pp. 1-79

WEEK 6 // FEBRUARY 25

• Continue House of Leaves

WEEK 7 // MARCH 4

• Finish House of Leaves
• Hansen, Mark B. N. “The Digital Topography of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.” Contemporary Literature 45.4 (2004): 597-636.  http://muse.jhu.edu.mutex.gmu.edu/journals/contemporary_literature/v045/45.4hansen.html
• Mid-semester Project Due

WEEK 8 // MARCH 11 (SPRING BREAK)

• No class

WEEK 9 // MARCH 18

• Joanna Russ, The Female Man
• Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” from Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 149-181. (e-reserve)

WEEK 10 // MARCH 25

• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• Davis, Kimberly Chabot. “”Postmodern Blackness”: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the End of History.” Twentieth Century Literature 44.2 (1998): 242-260. http://www.jstor.org.mutex.gmu.edu/stable/441873 (on-campus link)

WEEK 11 // APRIL 1

• Don DeLillo, Mao II
• Osteen, Mark. “Becoming Incorporated: Spectacular Authorship and DeLillo’s Mao II.” Modern Fiction Studies 45.3 (1999): 643-668. http://muse.jhu.edu.mutex.gmu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v045/45.3osteen.html (on-campus link)

WEEK 12 // APRIL 8

• Lev Manovich, Database as a Genre of New Media
• Jason Nelson, Weather Visualizer and Conversation
• Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, We Feel Fine
• Jonathan Harris, The Whale Hunt
• Annotated Bibliography Due

WEEK 13 // APRIL 15

• Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange
• Adams, Rachel. “The Ends of America, the Ends of Postmodernism.” Twentieth Century Literature 53.3 (2007): 248-272. http://tinyurl.com/75te98 (on-campus link)

WEEK 14 // APRIL 22

• Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper
• Flores, Angel. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Hispania 38.2 (1955): 187-192. http://www.jstor.org/stable/335812 (on-campus link)

WEEK 15 // APRIL 29

• Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers
• Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman, Shooting War

WEEK 16 // MAY 6

• Final Paper due