Description
Book SynopsisRedefining postmodern American literature to include the voices of women and nonwhite writers
Trade ReviewA
Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2010.
“Bringing to the discussion the work of such authors as Rikki Ducornet and Ishmael Reed, Hogue creates an intriguing discussion that informs the scholarly debate regarding postmodernism. Highly recommended.”--
Choice“In
Postmodern American Literature and Its Other, W. Lawrence Hogue presents the most extended critique of contemporary American literature’s blind spots published to date. Few critics before Hogue have taken such a nuanced approach to the best work of Pynchon, Auster, Ducornet, Acker, Reed, and Vizenor; perhaps none have addressed the degree to which these authors remain within or work against the narrowest precepts of the Enlightenment. Hogue’s model of a “planetary postmodernism” that places the Others--people of color, women, syncretic religions--at the center of literature offers a way forward into new epistemological possibilities. This book will challenge our conversations about American literature for years to come.”--Darryl Dickson-Carr, author of
The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction“W. Lawrence Hogue opens up the postmodern canon--he makes the authors he criticizes more intriguing to read and study, and he gives multicultural and women authors their rightful place in postmodern American literature. Intriguing and thought-provoking.”--Jane Davis, author of
The White Image in the Black Mind: A Study of African American LiteratureTable of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xv
1. Postmodern American Literature and Its Other: The Euro-American Male, Woman, the African American, the American Indian, the Poor, and the Global Periphery 1
2. The Privileged, Sovereign, Euro-American (Male), Post/Modern Subject and Its Construction of the Other: Thomas Pynchon's V. and Paul Auster's
The New York Trilogy 42
3. Constructing Woman as Subject: Rikki Ducornet's
The Jade Cabinet and Kathy Acker's
Pussy, King of the Pirates 94
4. Signifying Planetary Postmodernity: Ischmael Reed's
Mumbo Jumbo and Gerald Vizenor's
The Heirs of Columbus 143
5. Conclusion 189
Notes 193
Works Cited 199
Index 209
