Course Readings and Recommendations

[ course readings | books in RBR | books in Reading Room ]

Each unit's readings are also listed under the given unit (links above). You will need to buy Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes at the Coop. All other readings will be online or in a course packet available in the Reading Room.

Literature

• Abish, Walter. Alphabetical Africa. New York: New Directions, 1974.(selected letters including B, P, S, T, U)

• Barnes, Julian. Flaubert's Parrot. 1984. Any edition. Picador, ordered by Coop preferred.

• Barth, John. "Petition." Lost In the Funhouse. London: Secker & Warburg, 1969. 59-71.

• Barthelme, Donald "The Educational Experience" (illustrated). The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays. Ed. Kim Herzinger. New York: Turtle Bay, 1992. 209-214. "Nothing: A Preliminary Account." Sixty Stories. "Sentence." Forty Stories. New York: Putnam, 1987. 158-163.

• Borges, Jorge Luis. "Of Exactitude In Science." A Universal History of Infamy. Translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. New York: Dutton, 1972. 141.

• Carter, Angela. "The Loves of Lady Purple." Fireworks. London: Quartet, 1974. 23-38.

• Chatwin, Bruce. The Viceroy of Ouidah. New York: Vintage, 1998.

• Flaubert, Gustave. "A Simple Heart." New York: New Directions Bibelot, 1996.

Film

• Being John Malkovich. Directed by Spike Jonze. 1999. Heavily edited VCD copy as well as screenplay available in Reading Room.

• Mao: the Real Man. Directed by Szilveszter Siklósi. 1994. (On IVLE during semester.)

• This Is Spinal Tap. Directed by Rob Reiner. 1984. (On IVLE during semester.)

Visual Art

• Miller, Steve. Representations.

• Morimura, Yasumasa. Self-Portrait as Art History series.

Theory

• Bakhtin, Mikhail. "From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse." Modern Criticism and Theory: a reader. Ed. David Lodge. New York: Longman, 2000. 105-124.

• Barthes, Roland. "Myth today" (From Mythologies) A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. Eds. Anthony Easthope and Kate McGowan. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992. 14-19.

• Barthes, Roland. "The Reality Effect." The Rustle of Language. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986. 141-148.

• Baudrillard, Jean. "The Precession of Simulacra." Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1994. 1-42.

• Bryson, Norman. "Morimura's Olympia." Field Work: Sites in Literary and Cultural Studies. Eds. Marjorie Garber, Paul B. Franklin, et al. 175-182.

• Derrida, Jacques. "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." A Postmodern Reader. Eds. Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon. 223-242.

• Emberley, Julia. "The Fashion Apparatus and the Deconstruction of Postmodern Subjectivity." Body Invaders. London: Macmillan, 1988. 47-60.

• Haraway, Donna. "The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Determinations of Self in Immune System Discourse." American Feminist Thought at Century's End: a reader. Ed. Linda S. Kauffman. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994. 199-233.

• Hutcheon, Linda. "The Politics of Parody.". The Politics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1989. 93-107.

• Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"

• Lyotard, Jean-François. "Answering the Question: what is postmodernism." "Note on the Meaning of 'Post-'". "What Is the Postmodern?" The Postmodern Explained. 12-16. 75-80.

• Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: Minnesota, 1984. 23-41. 52-60.

• Rose, Margaret A. Parody: ancient, modern and postmodern. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. 54-99.

• Shiner, Larry. "Flaubert's Parrot, Agee's Swan: From 'Reality Effect' to 'Fiction Effect.'" Journal of Narrative Technique 20(2): 167-178.

• Sokal hoax documents @ http://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/index.html See details under Intervention

• Sutton-Smith, Brian. "Rhetorics of the Imaginary." The Ambiguity of Play. 127-150.

• Flaubert, Gustave. "A Simple Heart." PQ2246 Si.Mcd

• Critical Concepts: Postmodernism B 831.2 Pos (numerous essays for further reading)

• The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, ed. Stuart Sim (10+ essays on "Postmodernism and X (such as art, television, feminism, politics, etc. and an A-Z guide to concepts and people commonly associated with postmodernism)"
• Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
• Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism
• A Postmodern Reader, eds. Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon.
• Charlie Kaufman, Being John Malkovich (screenplay)
• Robert R. Provine, Laughter: A Scientific Investigation
• Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa
• Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play