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Engl. 772-01 Literary Period

Contemporary American

Research Links

• Absurdism/Existentialism
• Feminism
• Multi-culturalism
• Postmodernism
• Selected Authors
• Selected Dramatists

• Absurdism and Existentialism

Absurdism--definition from Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms

Introduction to Absurd Drama--selection from Martin Esslin's classic study.

The Theatre of the Absurd: The West and the East--Absurdism, in the context of the Cold War era.

A Cry toward the Absurd: Existentialism--another short introduction to some key ideas and representatives.

Some Main Points from Sartre's Existentialism and Human Emotions: Lecture Outline--very helpful summary of Sartre's key points; a link is also provided to the full lecture.

Existentialism is a Humanism--classic essay by Jean Paul Sartre (translation).

• Feminism

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex--major selections from this feminist classic.  See especially Beauvoir's Introduction: Woman as Other.

Kate Millett, "Theory of Sexual Politics"--Chapter 2 of Sexual Politics.

Betty Friedan, "The Problem that Has No Name" --Chapter 1 of The Feminine Mystique. See also Friedan's "The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud"--Chapter 5 of The Feminine Mystique.

Helene Cixous, "The Laugh of Medusa"-- famous feminist essay.

Luce Irigaray, "This Sex Which Is Not One" --classic feminist book-length text.

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble--short biography and summary of her key ideas.

Smelik's Carousel of Genders--essay on post-modern gender performance in pop culture (Madonna, Michael Jackson, etc.)

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" --from Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. See also Carolyn Keene on Haraway and 25 years later: Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" for some helpful commentary.

• Multi-culturalism and Race

What Was Jim Crow? --history of racial segregation in America, late 19th century to beginning of Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. See also Remembering Jim Crow --helpful introductions to a collection of oral histories. Another good site, produced by PBS: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism--Chapter 2 on The signifiying Monkey and the Language of Signifying from this important book on Afro-American literary criticism. See also these helpful notes on Chapters 1-2 from Gates' book: Some notes & quotes from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Signifying Monkey.

Bell Hooks, "Postmodern Blackness" --critical essay by an important black feminist critic.

Toward a New Consciousness--chapter from Gloria Anzaldua's classic Borderlands/La Frontera. Alternate copy of Toward a New Consciousness.

Entering into the Serpent and the Coatlique State--scroll down to pp. 47-73 (Chapters 3 and 4) in Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera. Alternate copy available: Coatlalopeuh, She Who Has Dominion over Serpents--selection from Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera. See also critical commentary on Chapter 3 Entering the Serpent.

How to Tame a Wild Tongue--chapter from Gloria Anzaldua's classic Borderlands/La Frontera. Alternate copy of How to Tame a Wild Tongue.

Constructing Mestiza Consciousness: Anzaldua's Literary Techniques in Borderland/La Frontera--The New Mestiza--scholarly article.

Reconfiguring the New Mestiza--critical discussion of Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera.

Edward Said, Orientalism --from Chapter 1, on Asian stereotypes. See critical commentary: Orientalism.

Trinh T. Minh-ha, Women, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism"--post-colonial essay.

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" --significant article on the dangers of imposing our values on other cultures.

Where I Come from Is Like This--Paula Gunn Allen's well-known essay.

The Sacred Hoop: A Contemporary Indian Perspective on American Indian Literature--important essay by Paula Gunn Allen.

• Postmodern Theory

General

• Metafiction (Emory U) --introductory summary.
• The ABCs of Reality Construction --writer's introduction to strategies of metafiction.
• Smells like Avant-Pop: An Introduction, of Sorts --unorthodox paper explaining "avant-pop."

Linda Hutcheon

• Politics of Postmodernism: Parody and History--important article by Linda Hutcheon. See helpful summaries: Linda Hutcheon's "On Postmodernity" and Linda Hutcheon's "On Parody".
• Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Interxtuality of History--important Linda Hutcheon article. See outline/summary of Hutcheon's ideas in Historiographic Metafiction.
• "Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern" by Linda Hutcheon --important essay on postmodernism.
• Theorizing--Feminism and Postmodernity: A Conversation with Linda Hutcheon --helpful comments from a major PoMo theorist.

Jean Baudrillard

• Jean Baudrillard "On Postmodernity and Jean Baudrillard "On Simulation--excellent summaries. See also this helpful student summary on the "disappearance of the real": A Critique of Baudrillard.
• Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (selection)--important PoMo theorist.
• History: A Retro Scenario--from Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation.
• Jean Baudrillard--helpful biography and summary of some of the important theorist's ideas. See also this webliography: Baudrillard: Articles and Interviews--links to many articles, including many sections of Simulacra and Simulation (scroll down the page).
• Baudrillard's "Disneyworld Company" --Baudrillard on our theme park world.

Jean-Francois Lyotard

• Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition--Chapters 1-5.

Fredric Jameson

• Fredric Jameson's "On Postmodernity" and Fredric Jameson's "On Pastiche"--excellent summaries.
• Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism --two sections from chapter 1. Here is another copy of Jameson's "Cultural Logic . . .", with illustrations.

Donna Haraway

• A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century--important article by Donna Haraway. Alternate copy: Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto --long selection.
• Donna Harraway--biography and summary of her key PoMo ideas. See also these summaries of her ideas: Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto" and Cyborg . . ..
• The Cyborg Manifesto Explained--very helpful explanation.
• Of Machines and Meat: Cyberpunk, the Post-modern Condition, and the Posthuman Reality--very helpful student paper on "cyberpunk" literature and culture.

Bell Hooks

• Bell Hooks, "Postmodern Blackness"--essay.

Michel Foucault

• Michel Foucault, The Archæology of Knowledge--Chapter 1.

• Selected Authors

Acker, Kathy

• Acker, Kathy | INTRODUCTION --biography/commentary.
• Kathy Acker: Stiletto Feature --Acker comments on her writing and life.
• The Language of the Body --e-text of Acker story.
• Kathy Acker: Where does she get off?-interview.
• Dead Doll Humility--e-text of Acker sory.
• Theoretical Grrrl: The Legacy of Kathy Acker --commentary on Acker's writings and life.
• Transfeminizing Postfeminism--scholarly article on Acker's "post-feminism" (scroll down the web page to Page 11).
• Where’s the Booty?: The Stakes of Textual and Economic Piracy as Seen Through the Work of Kathy Acker--scholarly article.
• Incest and Innocence: Janey's Youth in Acker's Blood and Guts in High School --scholarly article.
• 'I Can't Get Sexual Genders Straight': Kathy Acker's Writing of Bodies and Pleasures --scholarly article.
• 'But who is any longer interested in the possible?': Kathy Acker in Hell Failing Fuck You --scholarly article.

Anaya, Rudolfo

• Message from the Inca --e-text of Anaya story, plus good introduction to Anaya's writing by Michele Bottalico.

Baraka, Amiri

• Baraka Links --to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.

Barth, John

• Study Questions: Barth
• Intertextuality and Self-referentiality in Lost in the Funhouse--good student paper.
• Lost in a Funhouse--critical essay providing a helpful overview of the collection and major themes.
• Self-Knowledge and Self-Conception: The Therapy of Autobiography in John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse--scholarly article.
• Done with Mirrors: Restoring the Authority Lost in John Barth's Funhouse--Worthington's scholarly article.
• The Common Quest for the Alternative Model of the Individual in Haraway and Barth--Haraway's ideas applied to Barth's "Petition."

Barthelme, Donald

• Some Concepts Helpful (or at least harmless) in Reading Donald Barthelme--amusing and helpful.
• The Balloon--Donald Barthelme story. See also The Balloon--short analysis of the Barthelme story.
• The Sentence--Donald Barthelme story.
• Me and Miss Mandible--Donald Barthelme story.
• King of Jazz--Donald Barthelme story.
• Zombies--Donald Barthelme story.
• The Indian Uprising--Donald Barthelme story (audio).
• Overview: "The Indian Uprising" by Donald Barthelme--close reading of this short story.
• Father-murder and Father-rescue: The Post-Freudian Allegories of Donald Barthelme--scholarly article.
• Other Literary Forms--short analyses of several Donald Barthelme stories.
• Heteroglossia and Collage: Donald Barthelme's 'Snow White'--scholarly article.

Brooks, Gwendolyn

• Brooks' Links --to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.

Coover, Robert

• Short biography.
• Study questions: Phantom of the Movie Palace
• The End of Books --Coover essay on the future of hypertext writing.
• Books of the Times --book review of the Coover collection that includes "Phantom of the Movie Palace."
• Splice Memory --book review of the Coover collection that includes "Phantom of the Movie Palace."
• Postmodernism as a Problematics of the Suspension of Difference: Robert Coover’s 'The Phantom of the Movie Palace' --scholarly paper.
• The Babysitter--Robert Coover short story.
• The Loss of Reality in "The Babysitter"--interesting commentary from a blog.
• Assembling Postmodernism: Experience, Meaning, and the Space In-between--scholarly article applying postmodern ideas to a number of contemporary texts.

DeLillo, Don

• Don DeLillo's White Noise: The Natural Language of the Species --scholarly article.
• The Primitive Modernity of Don Delillo's White Noise--good student essay.
• “Something Extraordinary Hovering Just Outside Our Touch”: The Technological Sublime in Don DeLillo’s White Noise--scholarly article.
• Rethinking Postmodern Narrativity: Narrative Construction and Identity Formation in Don DeLillo's White Noise--scholarly article.
• Don Delillo's White Noise: The Natural of the Species--scholarly article.
• Assembling Postmodernism: Experience, Meaning, and the Space In-between--scholarly article applying postmodern ideas to a number of contemporary texts.

Ellison, Ralph

• Ellison links--to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.

Ginsberg, Allen

• Ginsberg links--to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.
• From The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later --several reminisces about Ginsberg and 'Howl.'
• Homoerotic Romanticism and the Poetry of Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Allen Ginsberg--scholarly paper.
• Allen Ginsberg's FBI File--interesting article.
• 'I'm Not His Father': Lionel Trilling, Allen Ginsberg, and the Contours of Literary Modernism --scholarly article.
• Allen Ginsberg and Mary Jane --articl on Ginsberg's attitude towards marijuana.

Johnson, Joyce

• No Girls Allowed: Women Poets and the Beat Generation --scholarly article.
• More than Minor Characters: Women of the Beat --links to several essays.

Kerouac, Jack

• Beating Time: Configurations of Temporality in Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' --scholarly article.
• The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs --book review; good intro. to beat spiritual concerns.
• Kerouac's 'The Subterraneans': A Study of "Romantic Primitivism --scholarly article.

Kingston, Maxine Hong

• Cultural Politics and Chinese-American Female Subjectivity: Rethinking Kingston's Woman Warrior --scholarly article.
• Authorizing Female Voice and Experience: Ghosts and Spirits in Kingston's 'The Woman Warrior' and Allende's 'The House of the Spirits' --scholarly article.
• Engendering Genre: Gender and Nationalism in 'China Men' and 'The Woman Warrior' --scholarly article.

Lee, Chang-Rae

• Reading Contests and Contesting Reading: Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker and Ethnic New York --scholarly article.
• 'Just Another Ethnic Pol': Literary Citizenship in Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker --scholarly article.

Lee, Li-Young

• Inheritance and Invention in Li-Young Lee's Poetry --scholarly article.
• The Politics of Ethnic Authorship: Li-YOung Lee, Emerson, and WHitman at the Banquet Table --scholarly article.
• Beyond Lot's Wife: The Immigration Poems of Marilyn Chin, Garrett Hongo, Li-Young Lee, and David Mura --scholarly article.

LeGuin, Ursula

• Schroedinger's cat --explanation of the "thought experiment."
• Schrödinger's Cat: An Episode of Paralleled Realities --student essay.

Levertov, Denise

• Levertov links --to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.
• Presence, Silence and the Holy in Denise Levertov's Poems --scholarly article.
• Denise Levertov Sings 'the unheard music of that vanished lyre' --scholarly article.

Lowell, Robert

• Lowell links --to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.

Matrix, The

• Demons, Saviors, and Simulacra in The Matrix --critical essay.
• Simulacra and Simulation: Baudrillard and The Matrix --critical essay. See links in left column to many other responses to this movie.
• The Matrix and Jean Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulations' --critical essay.
• High on Technology — Low on Memory: Cultural Crisis in Dark City and The Matrix --scholarly article.

Morrison, Toni

• Morrison links--to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.

Mukherjee, Bharati

• The Technological Hybrid as Post-American: Cross-Cultural Genetics in 'Jasmine' --scholarly article.

O'Connor, Flannery

• Coat --e-text of early O'Connor story first published in 1996.
• Study Questions: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find".
• O'Connor's Comments on "Good Man".
• Chapter 8: Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge--commentary on eight O'Connor stories.
• Good Country People: Nihilist Hypocrites --helpful student essay.
• Placing Violence, Embodying Grace: Flannery O'Connor's 'Displaced Person' --scholarly article.
• Anagogical Vision and Comedic Form in Flannery O'Connor: The Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable --scholarly article on "Enduring Chill."
• Flannery O'Connor's Misfit and the Mystery of Evil --scholarly article.
• 'One of my babies': The Misfit and the Grandmother - in Flannery O'Connor's Short Story 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' --scholarly article.
• The Function of Signature in 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' --scholarly article.
• O'Connor's Mrs. May and Oates's Connie: An Unlikely Pair of Religious Initiates --scholarly article.
• 'For Christ's Sake Fix Him': Use of the Child in Two Stories by Flannery O'Connor --scholarly article.
• 'Erasing Angel': The Lucifer-Trickster Figure in Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction --scholarly article.

Olsen, Tillie

• Flowing against the Traditional Stream: Consciousness in Tillie Olsen's 'Tell Me a Riddle' --scholarly article.
• Tillie Olsen's 'Tell Me a Riddle': The Dialectics of Silence --scholarly article.

Paley, Grace

• Grace Paley's Faith: The Journey Homeward, the Journey Forward"--scholarly article.
• Faith and the 'Black thing': Political Action and Self-questioning in Grace Paley's Short Fiction --scholarly article.

Plath, Sylvia

• Plath links--to study aids, scholarly articles, biographical information.
• More Plath links--to poems and scholarly articles.
• Sylvia Plath--paintings on which a number of Plath's poems were based.
• The Monster in Plath's 'Mirror' --scholarly article.
• The Doxies of Daughterhood: Plath, Cixous, and the Father--scholarly article.
• The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath--scholarly article by Joyce Carol Oates.
• Ted Hughes and the Corpus of Sylvia Plath--scholarly article.
• The Monster in Plath’s 'Mirror'--scholarly article.
• Sylvia Plath's Transformations of Modernist Paintings --scholarly article.
• Trapped in Language: Aspects of Ambiguity and Intertextuality in Selected Poetry and Prose by Sylvia Plath --scholarly article.
• 'Two Sweet Ladies': Sexton and Plath's Friendship and Mutual Influence --scholarly article.
• Plath, Domesticity, and the Art of Advertising --scholarly article.
• 'I / Have a self to recover': The Restored Ariel --scholarly article.

Pynchon, Thomas

• Pynchon Notes--articles available in the back issues of this scholarly journal.
• The Crying of Lot 49--succinct summary of key issues in this novel.
• The Crying of Lot 49--helpful analysis.
• Another Face of Entropy: Particles Self-organize to Make Room for Randomness--another take on Pynchon's "entropy" idea.
• Beyond Linguistic Barriers: The Musical Fugue Structure of Thomas Pynchon's "Entrophy"--scholarly article.
• Luddites of the Nuclear Age: Cold War Satire and the Fallacies of Quasi Scientific Rhetoric--scholarly article.
• The Form and Meaning of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49--scholarly article.
• Just a little on Pynchon’s parody (and an afterthought on Varo)--some interesting comments on Lot 49
• The Postmodern Labyrinths of Lot 49--scholarly article.
• America as Glyph: Thomas Pynchon and the Problem of Multiplying Cultural Contexts--a hypertext/scholarly article.
• The Absurdist Heroine: A Wildean Critique of Pynchon's Uncertain Aesthetic--scholarly article.
• Entropy and the Fantastic in Pynchon's Narratives--scholarly article.
• Ekphrasis, Escape, and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 --scholarly article on Pynchon's use of the Remedios Varo painting. View Varo triptych discussed in the article: Toward the Tower (picture on left side); Embroidering the Earth's Mantle (center picture); The Escape (picture on right side).
• Other than Postmodern?--Foucault, Pynchon, Hybridity, Ethics--scholarly article with some references to Lot 49.
• CON-TEXT: Pynchon's Use of Parody--scholarly article.
• Pynchon's Early Labyrinths --scholarly article.
• Assembling Postmodernism: Experience, Meaning, and the Space In-between --scholarly article.
• The "scanty plot": Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia --scholarly article.
• Post-Oedipal Masses: Holding On to Our Paranoia --book review.
• Assembling Postmodernism: Experience, Meaning, and the Space In-between--scholarly article applying postmodern ideas to a number of contemporary texts.

Silko, Leslie Marmon

• Leslie Marmon Silko--biography.
• A Laguna Woman --biography; tradition of storytelling.
• Rewriting Ethnography: The Embedded Texts in Leslie Silko's Ceremony --scholarly article.
• The Function of the Landscape of Ceremony--scholarly article.
• CORE Ceremony: Index of Some Local Resources --links to helpful maps and photos relating to Silko's novel.
• The Feminine Landscape in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony --scholarly article.
• The Kaupata Motif in Silko's Ceremony: A Study of a Literary Homology --scholarly article.
• Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony and the Effects of White Contact on Pueblo Myth and Ritual --scholarly article.
• Ceremonies That Defeat Despair: 'things which don’t shift and grow are dead things' A Reading of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony--scholarly article.

Viramontes, Helena María

• The Moths--online text.
• It's a Small World: Divergence and Convergence in Helena Maria Viramontes's "The Cariboo Cafe"--scholarly article.
• Gendered Spaces and Subject Formation in ‘The Moths’by Helena María Viramontes--scholarly essay.
• Binary Opposition and Social Mobility of "The Moths"--scholarly essay.
• From Llorona to Gritona? Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros--scholarly article.
• Multiple Articulations of Exile in US Latina Literature: Confronting Exilic Absence and Trauma --scholarly article.

Vizenor, Gerald

• "Almost Browne" and "Feral Lasars"--online texts from Landfill Meditation.
• Study questions: Feral Lasers
• "Almost Browne" by Gerald Vizenor--interesting comments on Native "identity."
• Gerald Vizenor in his Contexts--from the book Understanding Gerald Vizenor.
• Blank books in Gerald Vizenor's "Almost Browne"--scholarly article.
• Transformations of the Trickster--scholarly article.
• Review of Landfill Meditations: Crossblood Stories--scroll down to page 117; postmodern satire in the "Almost Browne" stories.
• Doubling in Gerald Vizenor's Bearheart: The Pilgrimage Strategy or Bunyan Revisited--scroll down to Page 93; scholarly article.
• Chance and Ritual: The Gambler in the Texts of Gerald Vizenor--scroll down to Page 13; scholarly article on Bearheart and other fictions.
• Native American Trickster Tales--traditional trickster tales and links to many articles on tricksters.
• Crossbloods and Postindians: Terminological Redefinition in the Work of Gerald Vizenor --student paper.

Vonnegut, Kurt

• Harrison Bergeron --e-text of Vonnegut's short story. Alternate copy: Harrison Bergeron.
• Study Questions.
• The Politics of Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' --scholarly article.
• Socialism, Communism, and Harrison Bergeron--interesting commentary on the story.

• Selected Dramatists -- go to my American Drama web page.

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