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Rethinking Postmodernism(s)
Charles S. Peirce and the Pragmatist Negotiations of Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, and Jonathan Safran Foer
Series: - Postmodern Studies, Volume: 41
Author:
Rethinking Postmodernism(s) revisits three historical sites of American literary postmodernism: the early postmodernism of Thomas Pynchon’s V. (1961), the emancipatory postmodernism of Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and the late or post-postmodernism of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated (2002). For the first time, it confronts these texts with the pragmatist philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, staging a conceptual dialogue between pragmatism and postmodernism that historicizes and recontextualizes customary readings of postmodern fiction. The book is a must-read for all interested in current reassessments of literary postmodernism, in new critical dialogues between seminal postmodern texts, and in recent attempts to theorize the ‘post-postmodern’ moment.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Toward a New Postmodern Language Game: C. S. Peirce and the Pragmatist Language of Creativity and Consensus
Productive In/Stabilities: Susanne Rohr’s Peircean Theory of Reality Constitution
Beyond Rohr’s Model: Creativity, Consensus, and the Language of ‘Negotiations’
2. Creativity and Power: Thomas Pynchon’s V.
Destabilizing Play: V. ’s Creative Guesswork
Stifling Control: V.’ s Objects of Desire
Play and Control: Re-Engaging the ‘Paradox’ of Postmodern Fiction
3. Consensus and Difference: Toni Morrison’s Beloved
(De-)Constructing Intersubjectivity: Beloved’s Politics of Reading
Reworking Consensus: The Women’s Gathering and Beloved’s ‘Referential Debt’
4. Creativity and Consensus: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated
Staging Creativity: Everything’s Playful Destabilizations
Performing (Inter)Subjectivities: Everything’s Epistolary Mediations
Reworking Consensus: Toward a ‘Moral’ Vision of ‘Collective Creation’
Conclusion
Works Cited
Introduction
1. Toward a New Postmodern Language Game: C. S. Peirce and the Pragmatist Language of Creativity and Consensus
Productive In/Stabilities: Susanne Rohr’s Peircean Theory of Reality Constitution
Beyond Rohr’s Model: Creativity, Consensus, and the Language of ‘Negotiations’
2. Creativity and Power: Thomas Pynchon’s V.
Destabilizing Play: V. ’s Creative Guesswork
Stifling Control: V.’ s Objects of Desire
Play and Control: Re-Engaging the ‘Paradox’ of Postmodern Fiction
3. Consensus and Difference: Toni Morrison’s Beloved
(De-)Constructing Intersubjectivity: Beloved’s Politics of Reading
Reworking Consensus: The Women’s Gathering and Beloved’s ‘Referential Debt’
4. Creativity and Consensus: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated
Staging Creativity: Everything’s Playful Destabilizations
Performing (Inter)Subjectivities: Everything’s Epistolary Mediations
Reworking Consensus: Toward a ‘Moral’ Vision of ‘Collective Creation’
Conclusion
Works Cited