English 232b - Contemporary American Fiction. Topic: Fiction at the End of the 20th Century (undergraduate)

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.

English 232b - Contemporary American Fiction. Topic: Fiction at the End of the 20th Century (undergraduate)

One quickly notices that many of the best contemporary writers are trying to come to terms with this time of transition by looking 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 two of the books and a hypertext--Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl (1990), Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (1999), and Mary-Kim Arnold's "Kokura"--alternate between the terrible events of WWII and our own day. Two other novels invent dystopian futures from which to assess the turn of the century: Cynthia Kadohata's In the Heart of the Valley of Love (1996) and Philip Kerr's A Philosophical Investigation (1992). The remaining novels, movies, and hypertext focus their gaze on a recognizable present scene, although none particularly resembles the world that the popular media celebrates.

English 115w, 22 - Freshman Seminar: Contemporary American Fiction

Readings include:

• Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek. 

• Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

• E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News. 

• Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone. 

• Kaye Gibbons, Ellen Foster. 

• Charles Johnson, Middle Passage.

English 234 - Contemporary American Fiction (undergraduate)

  One of my earliest web sites. The site contains a chronology of Toni Morrison's Jazz, which readers have found useful. Readings include:

• Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina (1992)

• Jullia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991)

• Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy (1985-86)

• Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone (1995)

• Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek (1991)

• Don DeLillo, Mao II (1991)

• Louise Erdrich, Bingo Palace (1994)

• Richard Ford, Independence Day (1995)

• Charles Johnson, The Middle Passage (1990)

• Toni Morrison, Jazz (1992)

• Fae Ng, Bone (1993)

• E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News (1993)

 

last updated 8/4/02