Nostalgic Postmodernism

Why do so many contemporary British novels revert to the Victorian tradition in order to find a new source of inspiration? What does it mean from an ideological point of view to build a modern form of art by resurrecting and recycling an art of the past? From a formal point of view what are the aesthetic priorities established by these postmodernist novels? Those are the main questions tackled by this study intended for anybody interested in the aesthetic and ideological evolution of very recent fiction. What this analysis ultimately proposes is a reevaluation and a redefinition of postmodernism such as it is illustrated by the British novels which paradoxically both praise and mock, honour and debunk, imitate and subvert their Victorian models. Unashamedly opportunistic and deliberately exploiting the spirit of the time, this late form of postmodernism cannibalizes and reshapes not only Victorianism but all the other previous aesthetic movements - including early postmodernism.

Here's a book on postmodernism that is written in plain English. Whereas many books on postmodernism are so obscure that the Flesch index of readability goes off the chart (see Fredric Jameson's books, for example), Shawver's book is of average readability. That's excellent for a book on postmodernism. Her reviewers, too, seem inevitably to comment on the book's clear style. In this readable book, Shawver tells us the story of how therapy became postmodern. When therapy was modern, she tells us, therapists did therapy within the guidelines of specific schools. The postmodern therapist, however, works like a fine chef, highly trained, but invariably changing the recipe and spicing the food with her own salsa. Nostalgic postmodernism is just an early guilt-ridden phase in this postmodernism, but the postmodern therapist soon morphs out of nostalgia and recognizes and appreciates her postmodern shift. This story of the postmodernization of the therapists is cast, in this book, in the context of the history of therapy, and, to some extent, in the context of the author's own experience of her own postmodernization.

In this work, Marcus interprets a body of work that managed to transcend the decline of Italian cinema's prominence within the industry during the last two decades of the 20th-century.

This book presents a definition of literary postmodernism, using detective and science fictions as a frame. Through an exploration of both prior theoretical approaches, and indicators through characteristics of postmodernist fiction, this book identifies a structural framework to both understand and apply the lessons of postmodernism for the next generation. Within a growing consensus that the postmodern era has passed, this book examines the different conceptions of postmodernism and posits a meaningful definition, one which can provide the foundation for future literary expression. This theory is then applied to genre fiction, particularly detective fiction and science fiction, demonstrating that postmodernism is found in the structure, rather than questions posed about literary expression. Finally, Matthias Stephan considers post-postmodern movements, and how they can be expressed given this definition of literary postmodernism, moving forward to the twenty-first century.

This Encyclopedia offers an indispensable reference guide to twentieth-century fiction in the English-language. With nearly 500 contributors and over one million words, it is the most comprehensive and authoritative reference guide to twentieth-century fiction in the English language. Contains over 500 entries of 1000-3000 words written in lucid, jargon-free prose, by an international cast of leading scholars Arranged in three volumes covering British and Irish Fiction, American Fiction, and World Fiction, with each volume edited by a leading scholar in the field Entries cover major writers (such as Saul Bellow, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf, A.S. Byatt, Samual Beckett, D.H. Lawrence, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, Alice Munro, Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, and Ngûgî Wa Thiong’o) and their key works Examines the genres and sub-genres of fiction in English across the twentieth century (including crime fiction, Sci-Fi, chick lit, the noir novel, and the avant-garde novel) as well as the major movements, debates, and rubrics within the field, such as censorship, globalization, modernist fiction, fiction and the film industry, and the fiction of migration, diaspora, and exile

Contemporary works of art that remodel the canon not only create complex, hybrid and plural products but also alter our perceptions and understanding of their source texts. This is the dual process, referred to in this volume as "refraction", that the essays collected here set out to discuss and analyse by focusing on the dialectic rapport between postmodernism and the canon. What is sought in many of the essays is a redefinition of postmodernist art and a re-examination of the canon in the light of contemporary epistemology. Given this dual process, this volume will be of value both to everyone interested in contemporary art--particularly fiction, drama and film--and also to readers whose aim it is to promote a better appreciation of canonical British literature.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. Arguing that neo-Victorian fiction enacts and celebrates cultural memory, this book uses memory discourse to position these novels as dynamic participants in the contemporary historical imaginary.