Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu
Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Critical Theory at the University of Western Ontario

 

Postmodernism

CLC 273F, fall 2007, Somerville House (SH) rm. 3317 
 

Tutorials and shorter lectures: Monday 5:30—6:30

Lectures: Wednesday 4:30—6:30

Instructor: Călin Mihăilescu (cmihails@uwo.ca; tel. 661-2111 ext. 85862)

Teaching Assistant: Yaocí Pardo-Domínguez (ypardodo@uwo.ca)  

Office Hours: UC 361 Tue. 10:30-1:30 (or by appointment) 

Course Description

We will explore together a wide variety of phenomena characteristic of the late 20th-century culture. The main postmodern (PoMo) buzzwords—fragmentation, irony, pastiche, playfulness, kitsch & camp, “anything goes,” cool, pop, hypertext, etc.—will be turned inside out as they will be put to use in the fun and heavy work of interpretation. Literature, film, theory, visual arts, architecture, music, TV shows and computer games & habits will be discussed in the attempt of gaining a decently comprehensive understanding of what has been going on recently in world culture, and of how we are determined by these phenomena. Our main literary diet will include bits by Barthelme, Burroughs, Calvino, Carter, Coetzee, DeLillo, Nabokov, and Pelevin; most theoretical pronouncements are to be found in Thomas Docherty’s Postmodernism: a reader; films—to be shown and discussed in class—by Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar, Spike Jonze, Milcho Manchevski, Ridley Scott, and Quentin Tarantino). 

Syllabus 

Sept 10 – Introduction: PoMo (after high modernism and the avant-garde, we are taken over by technique and not needing too much skill); also course administration matters 

Sept 12 – PoMo atmosphere 

Ihab Hassan, “Toward a Concept of Postmodernism,” in Postmodernism: a reader (henceforth PR), pp. 146-156

Slide show: visual art and architecture (Magritte, Escher, Rothko, Warhol; Jencks, Venturi, Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry)

Musical interlude: (from) Luciano Berio, John Cage, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Janis Joplin, Keith Jarrett 

Sept 17 – Tutorial

Jean-François Lyotard, “Answering the Question: What is postmodernism?” and “Note on the Meaning of ‘Post-’,” PR: 38-50

6:30 p.m. SH 3317: Film showing: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) 

Sept 19 – PoMo & PoCo

J. M. Coetzee, Foe, 1987 

Sept 24 Tutorial: Coetzee

Supplementary reading: Simon During, “Postmodernism or Post-colonialism Today,” PR 448-462 

Sept 26 – Read me!

Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, 1981 (together with a comprehensive introduction into the problem of writing reading into itself, which would involve a discussion of four early PoMo texts: Unamuno’ Fog (Niebla), Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Borges’ “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” 

Oct 1 Tutorial: Calvino

Supplementary reading: Jean Baudrillard, “The Evil Demons of Images and the Precession of Simulacra”

6:30 p.m. SH 3317: Film showing: Pulp Fiction (1994) 

Oct 3 Left and Left (1)

Donald Barthelme, Forty Stories, 1987 

Oct 8 Thanksgiving for no class  

Oct 10 – Left and Left (2)

Barthelme 

Oct 15 Tutorial: Barthelme and Tarantino 

Oct 17 TV life-support systems

Victor Pelevin, Homo zapiens, 2002 

Oct 22 – Tutorial: Pelevin 

6:30 p.m. SH 3317: Film showing: Blade Runner (1982) 

Oct 24 – Product consumed

Don DeLillo, White Noise, 1986  

Oct 29 – Tutorial: DeLillo

Supplementary readings: Theodor Adorno, “Culture Industry Reconsidered,” in The Culture Industry, ed. J.M. Bernstein. London & New York: Routledge, 1991: 98-106; Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” PR 62-92

Further reading: Jameson, “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture”  

6:30 p.m. SH 3317: Film showing: Being John Malkovich (1999) 

Oct 31 – From high on (1)

William Burroughs, Junkie, 1953 

Nov 5 – Tutorial: Burroughs 

Nov 7 – From high on (2)

Burroughs and other morphs 

Nov 12 – Tutorial: Altered forms of being; Paintings: Francis Bacon

6:30 p.m. SH 3317: Film showing: All about My Mother (1999) 

Nov 14 – Swirl

Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus, 1994 

Nov 19 – Tutorial: Carter

Sabina Lovibond, “Feminism and Postmodernism” PR 390-414 

Further reading: Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An encounter between feminism and postmodernism” PR 415-432 

Nov 21 – Burn, texty, burn! (1)

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire, 1962 

Nov 26 – Tutorial: Nabokov

Charlie Parker solos

6:30 p.m. SH 3317: Film showing: Before the Rain (1995) 

Nov 28 – Nov 21 Burn, text, burn! (2)

Nabokov, Pale Fire 

Dec 3 – Tutorial: Nabokov and Manchevski 

Dec 5 – How does the millennium begin? – Papers are due. 

Course Requirements

A. Class Participation (20%)

As part of the grade for participation, students are expected to participate in class discussions and complete possible on-the-spot quizzes.

Notes on attendance: Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each class. If you have a legitimate reason to miss class (sickness, family crisis, religious holiday), please contact me beforehand so that we can arrange for you to make up any missed material. Missed classes and/or lack of class participation can add up and adversely affect your class participation grade. 

B. Class Presentation (15%): 10-15 minutes, delivered orally, to be followed by class discussion. You are not required to hand in a written version of your presentation. 

C. Paper (25%): 6-8 pages, due in class on December 4th.

The paper is to be written on a topic of your choice. All students are expected to have their topics approved during office hours. It would be a good idea to begin thinking about the final paper as early as possible in the semester. 

D. Final Exam (40%) will consist of identification- and essay questions. 

Required Texts

Donald Barthelme, Forty Stories (Penguin) 1987

William Burroughs, Junkie (Penguin) 1977

Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (Harcourt) 1981

Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (Vintage) 1994

J. M. Coetzee, Foe (Viking) 1987

Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin) 1986

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (Knopf) 1992

Victor Pelevin, Homo zapiens (Viking) 2002

Thomas Docherty, Postmodernism: a reader (Columbia UP) 1993 

Films

Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott; script Philip Dick & H. Fancher, USA, 1982)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (dir. & script Woody Allen, USA, 1985)

Pulp Fiction (dir. & script Quentin Tarantino, USA, 1994)

Before the Rain (dir. & script Milcho Manchevski, Macedonia/UK, 1995)

All about My Mother (dir. & script Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 1999)

Being John Malkovich (dir. Spike Jonze; script Charlie Kaufman; USA, 1999)