Literature after Postmodernism Reconstructive Fantasies

Postmodernism, deconstruction and subversion have been the buzzwords of the last few decades. But not any longer. Ever since the end of the millennium an increasingly perceptible desire to turn towards other concerns can be noted. Only, what comes after postmodernism? Where are we going now? Irmtraud Huber suggests some answers to these questions, focusing on novels by Michael Chabon, Mark Z. Danielewski, Jonathan Safran Foer and David Mitchell and highlighting the ways in which they go beyond postmodernism and turn from deconstruction to reconstruction. Approaching the question from an unusual direction by exploring the novelists' particular use of the fantastic mode, this book offers both further insights into the present aesthetic shift and a new perspective on the literary fantastic.

Irmtraud Huber is a Lecturer in Modern English Literature at the University of Berne, Switzerland. She did research as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, and her work was awarded the Helene-Richter-Prize by the Deutscher Anglistenverband.

Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost, or the Impossible End of Postmodernism
PART I: TRACING SHIFTS
1. Post-post, Beyond and Back: Literature in the Wake of Postmodernism
2. Pragmatic Fantasies: From Subversion to Reconstruction
PART II: RECONSTRUCTIVE READINGS
3. Leaving the Postmodernist Labyrinth: Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
4. The Quest for Narrative Reconstruction: Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated
5. Escaping Towards History: Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
6. Dreaming of Reconstruction: David Mitchell's number9dream
Conclusion: The Coming of Age of Reconstruction
Bibliography
Notes
Index