Roberson Goals and Objectives Course Description Fiction constitutes a way of looking at the world. . . . Realistic fiction presupposed chronological time as the medium of a plotted narrative, an irreducible individual psyche as the subject of its characterization, and, above all, the ultimate, concrete reality of things as the object and rationale of its description. In the world of post-realism, however, all of these absolutes have become absolutely problematic.
Time is reduced to presence, the series of discontinuous moments.
There is only reading and writing, which are things we do, like eating and making love, to pass the time, ways of maintaining a considered boredom in the face of the abyss. Not to mention a series of overwhelming social dislocations. This course will examine a number of contemporary fictions written since 1940. Using several critical approaches to help guide our study, we will see how these fictions make and also complicate certain assumptions about post W.W. II America. In this course, you will write response papers for six texts, one ten-page final paper, a midterm, and a final exam.