English 159 - Winter, 2013

Topics in the Novel

Topic: When the Past Looks Shinier than the Future: Nostalgia and Desiderium

Class Information

Instructor: Williams, Nathaniel
CRN: 74139
Time: TR 9:00-10:20
Location: 105 Olson

Description

A long time ago (back in 1984), Frederic Jameson singled out "nostalgia" as a hallmark of literary postmodernism. Have things changed? Evidence of our contemporary culture's penchant for idealizing and re-consuming its own past are everywhere. Recent works, such as Wired columnist Daniel Wilson's Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived, point to a growing frustration that the future imagined by earlier writers never actually occurred. As a result, contemporary novels mine what science-fiction historian John Clute calls "desiderium": an "intense longing for something... that should have existed." From this perspective, a dominant narrative of our modern age is one of missed chances, lost possibilities, and "past-the-point-of-no-return" disappointment that complicates nostalgia.

At what point does fondness for the relics of our past become disappointment in the future it promised? How does modern fiction idealize the past and/or mourn a future that didn't happen? We'll begin with Twain's definitively nostalgic Tom Sawyer and jump ahead chronologically to postmodern works such as Doctorow's Ragtime that figured into Jameson's definition. We'll follow that with a series of novels that use twentieth-century pop culture (particularly tropes of popular music and science fiction) to examine the recent past and wrestle with the great divide between the future we anticipated and the world we actually have. Along the way, we'll dip our feet in sub-genres such as steampunk and retrofuturism, and perhaps even watch bits of American Graffiti, Futurama, or The Venture Bros. for context.

Grading

Class participation, quizzes, two essays, several one-page response papers, final written exam

Texts

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
Jazz, Toni Morrison
Things Will Never Be the Same, Howard Waldrop
Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, Bradley Denton
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
In War Times, Kathleen Goonan
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest