 | Aug 27: Introduction: The Encyclopedic Tradition in Prose
Fiction
| Sep 3: Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow I. Edward
Mendelson, "Gravity's Encyclopedia," in Bloom, ed.
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, pp. 29-52.
| Sep 10: Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow II. Tom LeClair,
"Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow," in The
Art of Excess, pp. 36-68. Brian McHale, "Misreading
Gravity's Rainbow," in Constructing Postmodernism,
pp. 87-114.
| Sep 17: Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow III. N. Katherine
Hayles, "Caught in the Web: Cosmology and the Point of (No)
Return in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow," in Cosmic
Web, pp. 168-97.
| Sep 24: John Barth, LETTERS I. Barth, "A Few
Words About Minimalism" and "It's a Long Story: Maximalism
Reconsidered," in Further Fridays, pp. 64-88.
| Oct 1: Barth, LETTERS II. Barth, "Speaking of
LETTERS," "Historical Fiction, Fictitious History"
and "The Literature of Replenishment," in The Friday
Book, pp. 172-206.
| Oct 8: Barth, LETTERS III. Tom LeClair, "John
Barth's LETTERS," in The Art of Excess, pp.
175-203. Max Schultz, "Barth, LETTERS, and the Great
Tradition," in Cope and Green, eds. Novel Vs. Fiction,
pp. 95-115.
| Oct 15: Donald Barthelme, Snow White. Paul Maltby,
"Donald Barthelme," in Dissident Postmodernists,
pp. 43-81.
| Oct 22: William Gibson, Neuromancer. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay,
Jr., "Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism," in McCaffery,
ed. Storming the Reality Studio, pp. 182-93. Veronica
Hollinger, "Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism,"
in Storming, pp. 203-218. Larry McCaffery, "An Interview
with William Gibson," in Storming, pp. 263-85.
| Oct 29: Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless. Ellen
G. Friedman, "'Now Eat Your Mind': An Introduction to the
Works of Kathy Acker," in Review of Contemporary Fiction
9:3 (1989): 37-49. Larry McCaffery, "The Artists of Hell:
Kathy Acker and 'Punk' Aesthetics," in Friedman and Fuchs,
eds. Breaking the Sequence, pp. 215-30.
| Nov 5: Don DeLillo, White Noise. Tom LeClair, "Closing
the Loop: White Noise," in In the Loop, pp.
207-36. Frank Lentricchia, "Tales of the Electronic Tribe"
in New Essays on White Noise, pp. 87-113.
| Nov 12: William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own I.
| Nov 19: Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own II.
| Nov 26: No Class: Thanksgiving Recess
| Dec 3: Georges Perec, Life: A User's Manual I. Paul
Schwartz, "La Vie mode d'emploi," in Georges
Perec: Traces of His Passage, pp. 85-100.
| Dec 10: Perec, Life: A User's Manual II
| |
Required Texts:
Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless (Grove Weidenfeld, 1988)
John Barth, Letters (Putnam's, 1979; Dalkey Archive; 1994)
Donald Barthelme, Snow White (Atheneum, 1967)
Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin, 1985)
William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own ( Poseidon, 1994 )
William Gibson, Neuromancer (Ace, 1984)
Georges Perec, Life: A User's Manual (Godine, 1987)
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin, 1973)Texts are available at Talking Leaves Bookstore, 3158 Main St., Buffalo, NY.
Reserve List:
Barth, John. The Friday Book.
__________. Further Fridays.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
Cope, Jackson I. and Geoffrey Green, eds. Novel Vs. Fiction: The Contemporary Reformation.
Friedman, Ellen G. and Miriam Fuchs, eds. Breaking the Sequence: Women's Experimental Fiction.
Hayles, N. Katherine. The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century.
LeClair, Tom. The Art of Excess: Mastery in Contemporary American Fiction.
__________. In the Loop: Don DeLillo and the Systems Novel.
Frank Lentricchia, "Tales of the Electronic Tribe" in Lentricchia, ed. New Essays on White Noise, pp. 87-113.
Maltby, Paul. Dissident Postmodernists: Barthelme, Coover, Pynchon.
McCaffery, Larry, ed. Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction.
McHale, Brian. Constructing Postmodernism.
Review of Contemporary Fiction 9:3 (1989): Kathy Acker Number.
Schwartz, Paul. Georges Perec: Traces of His Passage.
Weisenburger, Steven. A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel.Course Requirements:
Seminar participants who are registered intensively will be required to make a twenty-minute oral presentation that addresses the novel and critical works assigned for that class meeting. A one page, single-spaced precis with an attached works cited should be prepared for distribution to the class.
A twenty page research paper that addresses one or more novels on the syllabus is also required of intensively registered students.
Last revised on Tuesday, March 7, 2000.
Copyright © 2000 Joseph M. Conte. All Rights Reserved.