11:15A-12:30P TR (30) 3 cr.
This course will be organized around two related topics. The first is a recurrent motif in postmodern criticism and theory--that is, the notion that after World War II the distinction between "high" and "low" art begins to break down. The second topic is the result of this blurring of the boundary between the "literary" and the "popular"--that is, the emergence of a subgenre of postmodern literature sometimes called avant-pop. How fundamental is this boundary confusion? Does it represent any real shift in cultural values, or are avant-pop writers simply "slumming" in popular culture? What are the effects of rejecting the traditional distance of high art from popular culture and everyday life? What is gained by that rejection, and what is lost? For example, is avant-pop writing condemned to reproduce popular stereotypes rather than imagine alternatives to them? These are some of the key questions we will consider in this course.
Our readings will include both critical essays that provide a variety of different accounts of the breakdown of the distinction between literary art and popular culture, as well as examples of different varieties of avant-pop fiction.
Texts for the course will most likely be chosen from this list:
Donald Barthelme, Snow
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
Kathy Acker, Don Quixote
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Joanna Russ, The Female Man
Mark Leyner, Et Tu, Babe
Carole Maso, The Art Lover
Stephen Wright, Going Native
Douglas Coupland, Microserfs
Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2
Curtis White, Memories of My Father Watching TV
David Foster Wallace, The Girl with the Curious Hair
George Saunders, Civilwarland in Bad Decline or
Pastoralia
David Shields, Remote
Susan Daitch, Storytown
Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle or Tuff
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days
Guillermo Goemz-Pena, The New World Border
Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Tony Diaz, The Aztec Love God
Octavia Butler, Kindred
Bruce Sterling, A Good Old-Fashioned Future
Larry McCaffrey, ed., After Yesterday's Crash: The Avant-Pop
Anthology
Assignments for the course are likely to consist of 2-3 short essays, a midterm, and a final examination.