This course focuses on contemporary fiction published in the last decade of the twentieth century. This was an exciting period of literary innovation, a time of experimentation in subject, form, and media. The texts we explore range from postmodern experiments to multicultural narratives, from historical fiction to science fiction, from cyberpunk to hypertext, from Hollywood films to literary theory.Certain themes recur across the varied genres and media. Terrorism and virtual reality come up again and again, sometimes linked to one another as inescapable aspects of contemporary experience. To make sense of these current developments, novelist and filmmakers often look to either the past or the future. Hence several of the texts delve deeply into aspects of our culture's history. Charles Johnson's The Middle Passage (1990) returns to the national trauma of slavery; Toni Morrison's Jazz (1992) explores the formative years of the Harlem Renaissance; while Cynthia Ozick's linked stories in The Shawl (1990) and Mary-Kim Arnold's hypertext "Kokura" alternate between the terrible events of WWII and our own day. Other works explore the near future or focus their gaze on a recognizable present scene, although none particularly resembles the world that the popular media celebrates.
Visit the Student Projects completed in this course last year:
Lesley Cobb and Erin O'neil,
"Kidnapped"
Myia Coleman, Jarred Tanksley, and Lindsay Wilson, "Post-Modern Consumer Services"
Ashley Eaton and John Greer,
"Rocker Arrested for Cyberrape"
Dan Green, "The Simulacrums"
Jennifer Romans, "Victims of the Modern Age"
(Powerpoint file)
Greg Glasheen, "Machine Madness"
Jay Clayton Vanderbilt University
