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Narrative Innovation and Cultural Rewriting undertakes a systematic study of postmodernism's responses to the polarized ideologies of the postwar period that have held cultures hostage to a confrontation between rival ideologies abroad and a clash between champions of uniformity and disruptive others at home. Considering a broad range of narrative projects and approaches (from polysystemic fiction to surfiction, postmodern feminism, and multicultural/postcolonial fiction), this book highlights their solutions to ontological division (real vs. imaginary, wordly and other-worldly), sociocultural oppositions (of race, class, gender) and narratological dualities (imitation vs. invention, realism vs. formalism). A thorough rereading of the best experimental work published in the US since the mid-1960s reveals the fact that innovative fiction has been from the beginning concerned with redefining the relationship between history and fiction, narrative and cultural articulation. Stepping back from traditional polarizations, innovative novelists have tried to envision an alternative history of irreducible particularities, excluded middles, and creative intercrossings.
List of contents
Postmodernism's Polytropic Imagination: Unwriting/Rewriting the Cold War Narratives of Polarization When the 'Mystery of Reason' Confronts the 'Mystery of Desire': The Rearticulation of History in Polysystemic Fiction Narrative as an 'Interventive' Mode: From Surfiction to Avant-Pop Revisionistic Narratives from the Interstices of the Cold War: Postmodern Feminist Fiction 'Chain of Links' or 'Disorderly Tangle of Lines'? Alternative Cartographies of Modernity in Thomas Pynchon's Fiction Interventive Writing in the 'Post Human' Age: Experiential and Cultural Rearticulation in Ronald Sukenick Fiction Narrative (Dis)Articulation in the 'Shadowbox' of History: Raymond Federman's Exploratory Surfiction Translating a History of Unspeakable' Otherness into a Discourse of Empowered 'Choices': Toni Morrison's Novels of Radical Rememory
About the author
MARCEL CORNIS-POPE is Professor and Chair of the English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of Hermeneutic Desire and Critical Rewriting (Macmillan/SMP 1992).
Summary
Narrative Innovation and Cultural Rewriting undertakes a systematic study of postmodernism's responses to the polarized ideologies of the postwar period that have held cultures hostage to a confrontation between rival ideologies abroad and a clash between champions of uniformity and disruptive others at home. Considering a broad range of narrative projects and approaches (from polysystemic fiction to surfiction, postmodern feminism, and multicultural/postcolonial fiction), this book highlights their solutions to ontological division (real vs. imaginary, wordly and other-worldly), sociocultural oppositions (of race, class, gender) and narratological dualities (imitation vs. invention, realism vs. formalism). A thorough rereading of the best experimental work published in the US since the mid-1960s reveals the fact that innovative fiction has been from the beginning concerned with redefining the relationship between history and fiction, narrative and cultural articulation. Stepping back from traditional polarizations, innovative novelists have tried to envision an alternative history of irreducible particularities, excluded middles, and creative intercrossings.
Additional text
"... a unique book...one that will prompt a new direction in American literary studies." - Jerome Klinkowitz, South Atlantic Review
"Cornis-Pope's strengths as a critic are many and formidable...his command of theory wide-ranging and masterful..." - Brian McHale, The Comparatist
"...show[s] that postmodern versatility can be culturally significant in the post-Cold War reconstruction and restructuring." - Maria Ionita, Literary Research
"...he usefully breaks out of some of the dichotomies and reductions that have characterized some criticisms of postmodernity." - Marc Singer, Symploke
"...both extraordinarily thorough and comprehensive, and attentive to the nuances and specificities of the writers he discusses." - Adam Katz, American Book Review
Report
"... a unique book...one that will prompt a new direction in American literary studies." - Jerome Klinkowitz, South Atlantic Review
"Cornis-Pope's strengths as a critic are many and formidable...his command of theory wide-ranging and masterful..." - Brian McHale, The Comparatist
"...show[s] that postmodern versatility can be culturally significant in the post-Cold War reconstruction and restructuring." - Maria Ionita, Literary Research
"...he usefully breaks out of some of the dichotomies and reductions that have characterized some criticisms of postmodernity." - Marc Singer, Symploke
"...both extraordinarily thorough and comprehensive, and attentive to the nuances and specificities of the writers he discusses." - Adam Katz, American Book Review
