Includes bibliographical references (pages 218-229) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Speculative historism, visible historical futures -- At the edges of realism: Ken Kalfus's Equilateral -- The prismatic lens of genre: Joyce Carol Oates's The Accursed -- A less oblique mode of political art: Chris Bachelder's U.S.! and Jason Heller's Taft 2012 -- Escapism, nostalgia, and hope: Ernest Cline's Ready Player One -- Marvellous histories, possible futures: Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao -- Slavery and speculation: Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad and Ben Winter's Underground Airlines -- Conclusion: Speculative historism and contemporary hope.
Summary:
"Examines the connection between historical and speculative fiction to offer a new form of literary-genre fiction that registers the upheavals of the early twenty-first century. Provides detailed critical readings of key writers of the early 21st century. Theorizes a reading practice and its relation to the question of literature's political role in the 21st century. Establishes a new form of literary-genre fiction that registers the upheavals of the early 21st century and potential literary answers to them. Utopian Pasts and Futures in the Contemporary American Novel highlights the emergence of a literary mode, speculative historism, over the past two decades in U.S. literature. Discussing in depth novels by writers such as Ken Kalfus, Joyce Carol Oates, and Colson Whitehead, among others, it integrates questions of critical method, genre, form, and literary theory, all of which have some urgency today. Addressing itself to the question of how to read this mode through a form of utopian hermeneutics, this study explores the formal constitution, narrative choices, and place in the wider literary market of a mode that it believes to be constitutively important for understanding American literature's struggle with the possibility of imagining hopeful futures."-- Publisher's website. "Utopian Pasts and Futures in the Contemporary American Novel highlights the emergence of a literary mode, speculative historism, over the past two decades in U.S. literature. Discussing in depth novels by writers such as Ken Kalfus, Joyce Carol Oates, and Colson Whitehead, among others, it integrates questions of critical method, genre, form, and literary theory, all of which have some urgency today. Addressing itself to the question of how to read this mode through a form of utopian hermeneutics, this study explores the formal constitution, narrative choices, and place in the wider literary market of a mode that it believes to be constitutively important for understanding American literature's struggle with the possibility of imagining hopeful futures"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.