Jaroslav Kušnír’s book American Fiction: Modernism-Postmodernism, Popular Culture, and Metafiction is a sequel to his previous study on American postmodern fiction entitled Poetika americkej postmodernej prózy: Richard Brautigan and Donald Barthelme [Poetics of American Fiction: Richard Brautigan and Donald Barthelme]. Prešov: Impreso, 2001. It explores various aspects of American postmodernist fiction as manifested in the works by Richard Brautigan, Donald Barthelme and other American postmodernist authors such as Robert Coover, E. L. Doctorow, Kurt Vonnegut and Paul Auster. Analyzing various short stories and novels, the author shows differences between modernist and postmodernist literature in the works of Donald Barthelme; the way postmodern parodies of popular literary genres give a critique of some aspects of American cultural identity and experience (the American Dream, individualism, consumerism); and he also shows different ways postmodern authors such as Robert Coover, Kurt Vonnegut and Paul Auster create metafictional effect as one of the most significant aspects of postmodern literature.
This book includes contributions by African, East and West European, Asian and North American scholars which deal with and compare ideological and non-ideological approaches to the analysis of literary, artistic as well as popular works (popular music) mostly by American authors. Most of the essays deal with a way various aspects of American identity are depicted, represented, treated, ideologized and aestheticized in different literary genres, forms of art and media. The contributions offer multidisciplinary, cross-cultural and comparative perspectives and represent a diversity of scholarly voices ranging from the general discussion on the relationship between ideology and art (Anton Pokrivčák), ideology and multiculturalism (Cristina Garrigós). They also give the analysis of poetry (Pokrivčák, Obododima Oha), postmodern fiction (Pi-Hua Ni, Cristina Garrigós), drama (Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, Csaba Csapó) as well as the comparative analysis of the depiction of the identity of North American Indians in such different media as literature and film (Michal Peprník). In addition to this, the book includes the analysis of Black rap music (Wojciech Kallas).
In countries around the world, the rise of class divisions and unbridled capitalism are changing the conventional definitions of art and esthetics. Historically, the philanthropy of the elite has played a leading role in supporting, funding, and distributing artistic works. While such measures may be pure in intent, many worry that private funding may be gentrifying the arts and creating a situation in which art will only be valued for its prestige or, worse, its price tag. This collection of essays examines the current movement to democratize the arts and make the world of artistic endeavor open and accessible to all. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Increasingly, academic communities transcend national boundaries. 'Collaboration between researchers across space is clearly increasing, as well as being increasingly sought after,' noted the online magazine Inside Higher Ed in a recent article about research in the social sciences and humanities. Even for those scholars who don’t work directly with international colleagues, staying up-to-date and relevant requires keeping up with international currents of thought in one’s field. But when one’s colleagues span the globe, it’s not always easy to keep track of who’s who – or what kind of research they’re conducting. That’s where Intellect’s new series comes in. A set of worldwide guides to leading academics – and their work – across the arts and humanities, Who’s Who in Research features comprehensive profiles of scholars in the areas of cultural studies, film studies, media studies, performing arts and visual arts. Who's Who in Research: Visual Arts includes concise yet detailed listings include each academic’s name, institution, biography, and current research interests, as well as bibliographic information and a list of articles published in Intellect journals. The volumes in the Who’s Who in Research series will be updated each year, providing the most current information on the foremost thinkers in academia and making them an invaluable resource for scholars, hiring committees, academic libraries and would-be collaborators across the arts and humanities.
Poet, writer and filmmaker Paul Auster is one of the great contributors to American postmodern literature. Influenced by authors like Poe and the hardboiled detective stories of the 1950s, Auster’s novels represented a new genre of “anti-detective fiction,” in which the case itself loses direction and is overshadowed by existential questions. Analyzing three of his novels—Ghosts (1986), The Music of Chance (1990) and Mr. Vertigo (1994)—this critical study explores the intertextual relationship between Auster’s work and the oeuvre of French writer and critic Maurice Blanchot. The author explores Auster’s work as a fictionalization of Blanchot’s concept of inspiration and the construction of imaginary space.
Margaret Atwood's novels are photographs of her characters' lives: while words only ever describe her protagonists’ blurred visions of their pasts, their 'true' stories are told in subtexts which run parallel or even contrary to the main story line and which depict the unseen, the buried, the 'untrue'. Replete with intertextual references, her fiction illuminates that and why "[w]hat isn’t there has a presence, like the absence of light" (The Blind Assassin). She plays with our conventional modes of perception to make us aware of the way we frame reality in our minds. Andrea Strolz discusses in her book the interrelation between metafictional and intertextual features in two of Atwood's novels that share many similarities, even though written in different decades. She examines how Atwood weaves intertextual references into her fiction, how she facilitates a reader's recognition of the intertexts, and she shows that Atwood's narrator-protagonists also reflect on our age as one of intertextuality.
This book is an intertextual study of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy focusing on the influence of the main authors of the American Renaissance and the modern European tradition, represented by Samuel Beckett and Maurice Blanchot.
This book examines trauma in late twentieth- and twenty-first century American popular culture. Trauma has become a central paradigm for reading contemporary American culture. Since the early 1980s, an extensive range of genres increasingly feature traumatised protagonists and traumatic events. From traumatised superheroes in Hollywood blockbusters to apocalyptic-themed television series, trauma narratives abound. Although trauma is predominantly associated with high culture, this project shows how popular culture has become the most productive and innovative area of trauma representation in America. Examining film, television, animation, video games and cult texts, this book develops a series of original paradigms through which to understand trauma in popular culture. These include: popular trauma texts’ engagement with postmodern perspectives, formal techniques termed ‘competitive narration’, ‘polynarration’ and ‘sceptical scriptotherapy’, and perpetrator trauma in metafictional games.
The Simpsons are not only the world's most famous TV family; they are also the protagonists of one of the longest-lasting animation programs in US television. Over the course of the past thirty years, the yellow five from Springfield have become an indispensable part of American popular culture which still turns academics into fans and inspires fans to research the objects of their fascination. This book focuses on the Halloween Special TREEHOUSE OF HORROR, a part of THE SIMPSONS which research has largely left unnoticed. If THE SIMPSONS revolutionized how we look through television at US-American culture and society, TREEHOUSE OF HORROR has changed the way we re-member popular-culture history by way of horror traditions. This study demonstrates how Matt Groening's cartoon shows have painted a yellow archive of the digital age.
