Syllabus
SCHEDULE
Week 1 Introduction
Week 2 mass media & the birth of "the public" (McLuhan)
Week 3 from expansionism to empire (Gore Vidal)
Week 4 Libertarianism & the failure of democracy (Rexroth)
Week 5 from Havana Harbor to Pearl Harbor: disinformation
Week 6 realestate & intellectual property (Chinatown)
Week 7 the McCarthy Era (Good Luck and Goodnight)
Week 8 Kennedy: Home of Conspiracies (JFK)
Week 9 poets, hippies and home-grown terrorism (Guerrilla)
Week 10 network news as "white knight" (The Network)
Week 11 Watergate (All the President's Men)
Week 12 Fear and Loathing (the Corporation)
Week 13 Arcadia Burning (An Inconvenient Truth)
Week 14 Conclusion
Annotation
This seminar examines the work of a selection of contemporary novelists, within the context of 20th century modernity, and critical theory and praxis?including Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Georges Perec, Ann Quinn, Robert Coover, Ingeborg
Bachmann, Clarence Majors, William Burroughs, Christine Brooke-Rose, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Thomas Bernhard, Nicole
Brossard, Gilbert Sorrentino, Arno Schmidt, Samuel Beckett, H.D., Andy Warhol, Thomas Pynchon, Harry Mathews, Iain
Sinclair, Tom McCarthy and Joshua Cohen. Assessment will be based upon in-class discussion, a 20-minute formal presentation and a 3,000 word essay.