CATASTROPHE! CRISIS! COLLAPSE! THE NOVEL AND THE ENDS OF HISTORY
The political paranoia and nuclear anxieties of the Cold War met a “crisis of representation” in literature: we started to doubt the imagination’s capacity to process human cruelty on an apocalyptic scale. The weight of history piled up and pushed down. Postmodernism arose to meet the moment of aesthetic and social breakdown: nihilist, absurd, maze-like. Then, though, the wall fell. Some voices declared that history itself was over. Democracy had won; capitalism had won; the past was settled and the future was sealed. Literature adapted: irony was out; sincerity was in. History, though, has a funny way of coming back. It may not repeat, but it rhymes...
This course journeys with and through literature from a clash of civilizations to an America of false securities and back again.
Likely texts:
Ishmael Reed, MUMBO JUMBO (1972)
Don DeLillo, LIBRA (1988)
Karen Tei Yamashita, TROPIC OF ORANGE (1997)
Tony Kushner / Mike Nichols, ANGELS IN AMERICA (2003)
Porochista Khakpour, SONS & OTHER FLAMMABLE OBJECTS (2007)
Ling Ma, SEVERANCE (2018)
Tu/Th 3:30 - 4:45 pm (in person) SH 408
Spring 2026
Dr. Michael Docherty
ENG 4795: Contemporary American Literature: 1960 - Present (Dr. Michael Docherty)
ENG 4795: Contemporary American Literature: 1960 - Present (Dr. Michael Docherty)