Prophets of the Postmodern

Prophets of the Postmodern

The Writing of Don DeLillo & Thomas Pynchon

Recordings

English 190 // Spring 2026// T & Th 12:30 – 2 pm // Wheeler 122 Mark Danner Out of the cartoonish buffoonery of the postmodernist era two writers have emerged as indelible tribunes, having managed to confect in advance, and in great detail, the new century’s toxic mix of terror, strongmen and high-tech warfare. Just as Dostoyevsky animated his novel Demons (1872) with the approaching genocidal hoofbeats of the Russian Revolution, so Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon depicted societies glutted with advertising and social media, threatened by high-tech transcontinental terrorists, and shadowed by looming airborne toxic events. More than any of their contemporaries, they are fiction writers as seers, chosen ones able to discern the future in the blurry multi-color red fabric of the present — and in this seminar we will attempt to reverse the process, burrowing into their writings to discover the visions that made them prophets of our postmodern world. Class Requirements This class will be a mixture of lectures and discussion, backed up by a large amount of reading, and some writing. The most important requirements are that students *Attend all class sessions *Keep up with reading and writing assignments *Participate in discussions *Offer a class presentation on a topic related to the class *Complete a four-page midterm paper and an eight-page final paper A student’s record of attendance and participation in class discussion, together with the quality of his or her writing, will determine the success of our class and contribute the better part of the grade. Schedule Note that all classes will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12:30 pm in Wheeler 122. Class concludes at 2 pm. Course Assistant Katlynn Hahn is our undergraduate course assistant, and she can be reached at katlynnhahn@berkeley.edu. Reading Our primary reading will draw on a series of novels by Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon. They are listed below under Required Texts. Please obtain these books in your own copies and in the edition specified either from local bookstores or from online suppliers, so that you will be able to highlight and annotate them and so that during discussions we will all be “on the same page.” Favorite Passages Always come to class with a favorite passage of a paragraph or two drawn from that session’s assigned reading. Be prepared to read the passage out loud and say a few words about why you chose it. Suggested Secondary Texts These are to help you navigate your way around postmodernism and other concepts central to the course. They are for those wanting to delve more deeply into these concepts and are only a handful of the many possible sources. Note the web is full of material on both authors but particularly on Thomas Pynchon. Writing There will be two papers required in this class, a short creative paper or story of four pages and a longer analytic paper of eight pages. The four-page paper is due March 17. The eight-page paper is due April 28. To bolster the clarity and vigor of your prose, I strongly suggest studying two works: George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language,” which can be readily found on the web, and Strunk and White’s little manual, The Elements of Style. Class Presentation Every student will be required to put on a class presentation. The presentations should last ten to fifteen minutes and take up some subject ancillary to the class, having to do with DeLillo and/or Pynchon, their era, postmodernism, writers they’ve influenced, films based on their work, their politics, their biographies, among other things. Use of images, recordings and video is strongly encouraged for the presentation. Office Hours I will want to meet individually with each of you at least once during the semester. We will begin to schedule office hours a few weeks into the semester. You are welcome to come talk to me about the class, the reading, journalism or anything else of interest. Note that my writing, speaking and other courses can be found on my website, <a href="http://www.markdanner.com.">www.markdanner.com.</a> My personal email is mark@markdanner.com and is the more efficient way to reach me. Grading Students will be graded on their preparedness and their participation in class, the strength of their presentations and the quality of their written work, roughly as follows. Attendance 25 percent Prep & Participation 25 percent Writing 30 percent Presentation 20 percent Required Texts Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin, 1986 [1982]) Don DeLillo, Libra (Penguin, 1991 [1988}) Don DeLillo, Mao II (Penguin, 1992 [1991]) Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner: Early Stories (1985) Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (Harper, 2006 [1966]) Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (Penguin, 1997 [1990]) Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin, 2009) Suggested Secondary Texts Christopher Bulter, Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2002) Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (BPS, 2014 [1967]) Paula Geyh et al, Postmodern American Fiction (Norton, 1998) Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained (Minnesota, 1992) Natoli & Hutcheon, A Postmodern Reader (SUNY, 1993) Mark Osteen (ed.), White Noise: Text & Criticism (Viking, 1998) Thomas Pynchon Wiki – pynchonwiki.com Films Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another (2005) Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice (2014) Noah Baumbach, White Noise (2022) David Cronenberg, Cosmopolis (2012) <ol> <li> & F. Dubini, A Journey Into the Mind of P. (2002)</li> </ol> Benoit Jacquot, Never Ever (2016) Michael Hoffman, Game 6 (2006) Syllabus January 20, 2026 Introduction to Course. Postmodernism and Other Isms. Writers and Prophesy. The Period Covered by this Course. What We’re Reading, What We’re Not Reading and Why. On the plan of the course. Primary and secondary sources. How to read. Favorite Passages. Writing assignments. Presentations. How to Succeed in this Course. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon</a> – Photos of Pynchon <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/writer-don-delillo-poses-for-a-portrait-shoot-in-new-york-news-photo/134396018?adppopup=true">https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/writer-don-delillo-poses-for-a-portrait-shoot-in-new-york-news-photo/134396018?adppopup=true</a> – DeLillo Portrait <a href="https://www.pynchonwiki.com/">https://www.pynchonwiki.com/</a> – Pynchon Wiki <a href="http://www.slowdays.org/files/text/hassan.pdf">http://www.slowdays.org/files/text/hassan.pdf</a> Hassan essay: project CHART on sixth page <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon_bibliography">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon_bibliography</a> – List of Pynchon Books <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwXLDvAk5LA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwXLDvAk5LA</a> – The Mind of P (cue at :43 — forty-three seconds) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">About Thomas Pynchon – bibliography and influences</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Discussion of Don DeLillo</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The reclusive author</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Bibliographies</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The 1960s as an era</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Introduce Ihab Hassan essay</li> </ul> January 22 Read: Ihab Hassan, “Toward a Concept of Postmodernism” (1987) <a href="http://www.slowdays.org/files/text/hassan.pdf">http://www.slowdays.org/files/text/hassan.pdf</a> Read: “Entropy” and “The Secret Integration” in Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner: Early Stories (1985) (Both stories are available online.) <a href="https://biblioklept.org/2020/03/04/arnold-roths-original-illustrations-for-thomas-pynchons-1964-short-story-the-secret-integration-and-a-link-to-the-full-text-of-the-story/">https://biblioklept.org/2020/03/04/arnold-roths-original-illustrations-for-thomas-pynchons-1964-short-story-the-secret-integration-and-a-link-to-the-full-text-of-the-story/</a> Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The concept of Postmodernism</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Entropy – what is it, how it shows up in Pynchon’s work</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Arnold Roth’s illustrations – The Secret Integration</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Secret Integration</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">attitudes of the children, what they’re trying to achieve</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Carl Barrington and Mr. Mcafee character discussion</li> </ul> January 27 Read: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), pp. 1 – 79. Watch: D. & F. Dubini, A Journey Into the Mind of P. (2002) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">literary genres: picaresque, menippean satire, and the four major prose forms (novel, romance, confession, anatomy). </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">texts discussed: The Crying of Lot 49, The Erasers</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Analysis of Oedipa’s character: gender restrictions, entrapment, suburban identity, reference to Repunzel/Bordando el Manto Tenestre </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Oedipa’s name and how it relates to Oedipus’s story</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Discussing “revelations” </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Insights into Pierce and Oedipa’s relationship</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Discussing postmodernism, conspiracy, paranoia</li> </ul> January 29 Read: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), pp. 80-152. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Discuss the pastiche – what makes up Pynchon and DeLillo’s styles? What is essential to their work?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The final words in The Crying of Lot 49</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The bidding of Inverarity’s stamp collection – “crying” as it relates to auctions and bidding</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What is Oedipa waiting on? </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Left without a resolution, cyclical/open endings</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Oedipa’s paranoia, her start as a suburban housewife</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Possibility of a Tristero conspiracy</li> </ul> February 3 Read: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Crying of Lot 49 cont’d: Oedipa’s night walk through San Francisco</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Inamorati Anonymous — Pynchon and DeLillo both wrote corporate copy; Pynchon invented Yoyodyne during his time at Boeing</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Inverarity as investor and real estate tycoon; satire of corporate life and eschatology</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The muted post horn as symbol: concealment, fringe groups, possible revolutionary movement vs. symbol of stagnation</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Conspiratorial thinking as a feature of contemporary life (parallel drawn to QAnon)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Voluptuos” (pg. 95): revelations as religious euphoria; Oedipa resists accepting them</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pierce Inverarity’s name as coded warning; “keep it bouncing” as American capitalist motto</li> </ul> February 5 Read: Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin, 1986 [1982]), 3 – 163. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Introduction and comparison to Crying of Lot 49: shorter chapters, more cohesive, lulls reader into false sense of security; DeLillo in the realist tradition</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Opening scene “the day of the station wagons”: overconsumption, capitalism, self-created rituals</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Narrator’s description of Babette; density of “stuff” vs. Pynchon’s more stretched inclusions</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Class and consumerism: college students as market category, middle to upper-middle class caught up in disasters</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Postmodern condition: traditional narratives (religion, class struggle) have evaporated; search for the sacred and epiphany</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Making aesthetic choices causes anxiety; social media discussion</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mediated experience: protagonist constantly seeking ritual (burnt toast), inability to see things in an unmediated way; desire to be part of the group who has “seen the barn”</li> </ul> February 10 Read: Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin, 1986 [1982]), pp. 164 – 262. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“White noise” in the novel: capitalism, consumerism, products, ads, TV, radio as distractions from death</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Strange monologue of consumer durables (“Toyota Celica”) — lines floating down from the television as a kind of oracle; meaning lies in their strange impermeability </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 99: Mastercard, Visa, American Express interrupting deep thoughts — escapism through consumerism; disrupts the reader with the superficial</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Denial of Death: activity designed to avoid fear of death; Wilder cries for 6 hours (rarely speaks); “all plots lead toward death”</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Jack is 56 — as people age, preoccupation with death grows</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Hitler looms over the book: Jack buries his fear of death in Hitler studies; Mein Kampf as running dark joke; satire on academia</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Department of Hitler Studies as the comic idea the book sprang from</li> </ul> February 12 Read: Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin, 1986 [1982]), pp. 263 – 324. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">White Noise as a “novel of the 80s”: Reagan economics, rising consumerism, immigration, end of political liberalization from the 60s, return to “conservative values”</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pynchon more explicitly political than DeLillo</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The airborne toxic event: evacuation (pg. 133–134), SIMUVAC — simulated evacuation; DeLillo’s use of the language of experts</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Realm of simulacrum: kids experiencing symptoms based on radio broadcasts; joke of using a real event to rehearse a simulation; dramatic irony — pg. 135, real event seen as inferior practice to simulation</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 136: death as joke — “when I get to 80 I can relax”; Jack unaware he’s dying; ridiculousness of SIMUVAC and Jack as characters</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Replication and awe: can you imagine the copy of something you imagine? Imagination’s ability to replicate symptoms; irony of chemical threat making sunsets more beautiful</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Déjà vu as symptom treated as a joke</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The disaster as a plot engine — Jack goes after Dylan</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Fear of death: biological or social? Jack and Babette’s shared fear of death as an expression of love</li> </ul> February 17 Read: Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin, 1986 [1982]) Watch: Noah Baumbach, White Noise (2022) February 19 Read: Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (Penguin, 1997 [1990]), pp 3 – 106. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">80s vs. 60s: White Noise as an 80s book, opposite of 60s values; Vineland ping-pongs between both decades</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Vineland begins in 1984 (Orwell reference) — Reagan reelected; characters as refugees from the 60s (Zoyd, his wife); published after 17 years of silence since Gravity’s Rainbow</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Zoyd’s wife was an informant; war on drugs; militarization of police</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Cultural conservatism, neoliberalism, privatization — utilities and phone companies becoming private corporations</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Reference: “Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon” by Andrew Gordon; “general nervousness in college subculture”</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Vineland as exploration of tangible experience and American non-verbal reality; how the 60s led to the 80s (parallel drawn to how Obama led to Trump)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Grim paranoia: people trying to bust you on drug charges; still dealing with legacies of the Civil War, the 60s, the 30s union movement</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The 60s: stopping the war, experiments in living, unions and rebelliousness passing down generations</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What is Pynchon trying to discover? How do I want to live? (communal, poly, off-grid?) — the 60s as a missed chance</li> </ul> February 24 Read: Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (Penguin, 1997 [1990]), pp 107 – 203. Andrew Gordon, “Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon: A Sixties Memoir” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080509135818/http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/pynchon.htm">https://web.archive.org/web/20080509135818/http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/pynchon.htm</a> Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Characters: Zoyd Wheeler, daughter Prairie, ex-wife Frenesi; postmodern 80s/60s setting</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">White Noise vs. Vineland: different representations of government — trust vs. anti-trust</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Opening suspense: “creeping fig,” “bluejays” on the roof = cops; Zoyd and Prairie forced out of their home (sonata form — dominant to tonal key)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Zoyd must jump through a window to keep collecting disability; burnout figure from the 60s, permanently stoned and drug-addled; represents what the 60s have become — becomes a media event</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Prairie’s quest: searching for her mother Frenesi = classic quest narrative</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Why is it called “Vineland”? Location of Zoyd’s home (Lumber); lives determined by the 60s — refugees from the revolution moved from Berkeley to Vineland; informants linking and passing information</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Frenesi’s character: receives government checks delivered by US Marshal; was a revolutionary but ends up a government informant; sexually attracted to cops and authority figures — betrays the cause; affair with Brock Vond = mutual attraction</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Zoyd: liberal but not as progressive as Frenesi; “go along to get along” liberal</li> </ul> February 26 Read: Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (Penguin, 1997 [1990]), pp 204 – 293. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">White Noise film adaptation compared to the novel:</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Murray portrayed in a cartoonish way; stilted dialogue — heightened reality that worked better on the page; book more deadpan</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What worked: dual lecture scene</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What didn’t work: hotel/hospital scene (Baba being there, getting shot); absence of Wilder in the film; Babette’s monologue felt less plausible on screen</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Dream of Mink in the room — Mink as representation of death</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">scene of Jack getting gas</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Gap in time: 1980s book adapted into a 2020s film; opening scene designed to teach the audience how to watch the movie</li> </ul> March 3 Read: Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (Penguin, 1997 [1990]), pp 294 – 385. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Frenesi: 3rd generation lefty, labor movement of the 30s; Zoyd disappears for many pages</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Vineland as a book about the 60s and 80s — experiments in living, anti-government, cultural revolution vs. Reagan decade, anti-drug; also relevant to today’s reactionism and radical conservatism; Pynchon tracing synthetic, dialogic movement between decades over time</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 265: Why is Brock doing this? Turn back time, restore fascism — “if the president can’t act like that, why not Brock”; lost opportunity of the 60s, America’s reaction; constant back and forth between 60s and 80s; fragments of multiple genres</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The final frontier: small part of California, right to grow pot — liberation vs. repressiveness</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Zoyd’s window-jumping act produced and sold for viewing — government-enforced embarrassment of the hippies; Zoyd as revolutionary turned product; book saturated with popular culture</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Sex, drugs, rock and roll as philosophy (pg. 205, 209) — “college of the surf,” land development scheme (similar to Crying of Lot 49)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Frenesi as contradictory character: sleeping with Atman and Brock; pg. 217 — doesn’t make sense, therefore more believable; Brock and Atman use her as a “tool,” conveying messages through her body; lesson about authority and power</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 214: Brock’s homophobic sense of humor</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 269: Frenesi embodies the conflicting desires of the revolution — sexuality of authority; Brock’s perception of Frenesi and the general revolution</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Politics broadly conceived — not just federal government but what you watch, what you do at home, how the corporate state grabs your attention</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 235: Weed being set up and killed — Howie turns on TV instead of questioning if Weed betrayed them; belief in solidarity and moral uprightness is gone</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Thanatoids — why do they need karmic consultants? Something unresolved about Weed; pg. 229</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Sex, drugs, rock and roll as a failed revolution: sex not liberating for Frenesi; Brock’s obsession with young girls; Pynchon including troubling content on the fringes</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Distinction between government and corporate power — very connected; why did we give up privacy? Why are we part of this large corporate system?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Secret of the failure of the 60s contained in sex, drugs, rock and roll</li> </ul> March 5 Read: Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (Penguin, 1997 [1990]) Watch: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another (2005) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Vineland as utopia/”no place” — doesn’t live in the present tense; idea of being expelled from and returning home</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Festival ending as comedy signifier (Shakespearean), classical end; absurdity of the climax</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brock Vond as villain and narrative engine — suspended action; Vineland as haven/paradise until Brock inserts himself; present tense lost until Brock dies and the end festival</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Prairie’s psychological complexity: wishing Brock would return — “unfinished business”</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Factors that poisoned the 60s movement: TV, lack of concrete ideology, sex as imprisoning force and type of control, desire for order/structure — “Eros of Authoritarianism” (Prof.)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Role of TV in Vineland and White Noise; Prairie and DL’s mall scene; pg. 373 — “real enemies” = government and corporate America</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">60s lives on in popular culture: capitalism co-opted sex, swear words, honesty, nature — pushes against conservative culture to sell whatever sells best</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Revolutionaries of the 60s had no historical consciousness (pg. 369) — gen of 60s had no history, or they would have realized it happened in the teens and 30s</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Anarchist flavor to the book: critique of lefties, anarchist with faith</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Since the mid-60s (civil rights, voting rights) — threat to multiracial democracy ever since; book trying to understand American politics, reactionary nature especially toward progressive eras</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Postmodernism: strange book, setting free from the form of “the well-crafted novel”; absurd plot — Brock invades then nothing really happens, Vond kept at a distance</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mall scene: mass robbery of underwear</li> </ul> March 10 Read: Don DeLillo, Libra (Penguin, 1991 [1988}), pp 3 – 134. March 12 Read: Don DeLillo, Libra (Penguin, 1991 [1988}), pp 135 – 267 Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Last 100 pages of Vineland — pg. 319: began with idea of making TV, riffs on unions, historical sense, history of the left; Zoyd as scab working non-union jobs</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Close reading of Pynchon’s style: run-on sentences, non-parallel construction, dependent clauses, parentheticals, verb tenses; DeLillo by contrast very clean</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Ozman tapes — reference to Reagan era</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brock’s death as anticlimax; The Lonely Voice</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Vineland as a box that can hold many different types of novels — so unusual, nothing to compare it to</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The unsatisfying ending is intentional — motor of the narrative is suspense without release, resolution, or advancement</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brock’s death left ambiguous — cause of death unknown</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Sentence meandering: pg. 380 — moves from Brock dying to something seemingly random</li> </ul> March 17 Read: Don DeLillo, Libra (Penguin, 1991 [1988}), pp 268 – 354. Four Page Midterm Paper Due Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Alternate history — in what way is this postmodern? “Non-fiction novel” where we don’t know what’s real; author’s note calls it “a work of imagination”; “unblemished surface” — can’t tell made-up characters from real ones</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Preoccupation with film — frozen, replayed, edited; fractured, paranoid relationship with history</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Technique is modernist, worldview is postmodernist; reality has failed us, lost faith in establishment</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Passages 14 & 15 — who is Branch? Is he the author or perhaps the audience?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Save the Rosenbergs” — making all communists look like traitors; Trotsky in the Bronx — Russian revolutionary, wrote for Novy Mir</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Postmodernity beginning after/because of Kennedy assassination — paranoia, breakdown of order, suspicion of secret forces; QAnon traceable to this moment; other assassinations: Malcolm X, MLK, Bobby Kennedy; trust in institutions collapsed</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Libra: Win Everett and Nicolas Branch plotlines (created characters); Branch writing 14 years after assassination; intersecting plots — postmodern structure</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Can’t easily tell between made-up characters and real people; trying to explain Oswald connections</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How did the assassination happen if Oswald didn’t fire the kill shot? Said he was a patsy; parallax view (film)</li> </ul> March 19 Read: Don DeLillo, Libra (Penguin, 1991 [1988}), pp 355 – 456. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What Kennedy symbolized: young, progressive, handsome; killer shot on live TV days later — sparked conspiracy further</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Libra as a kind of pastiche — wants to be a novel but is about a real character; joke aspect of the author’s note — “altered and embellished reality”; something unstable about the note</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Zapruder film: idea that the kill shot wasn’t Oswald’s; local news segment about the “magic bullet” — how embedded these ideas are in the culture</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Libra built around holes in the Warren Report; in the book Oswald misses the third shot</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">DeLillo doesn’t supply factual answers but does supply an answer — Oswald planned to be a patsy, plot put together and planned</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">U.S. taking covert actions to influence foreign governments at the time (e.g. overthrowing Iranian leader)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Libra as a book about the ungraspable nature of history — irreducible, bewildering, open form</li> </ul> March 24 – Spring Break – No Class March 26 – Spring Break – No Class March 31 Read: Don DeLillo, Mao II (Penguin, 1992 [1991]), pp 3 -93. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How well these books fit together: history, violence, films (Libra and Mao II)</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mao II = novel of ideas; Kennedy assassination as the beginning of postmodernity — limits of master narratives</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Win Everett wanted a fake assassination to put pressure on Cuba; savior complex of Oswald; Thoreau quote: “most men lead lives of quiet desperation”</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">First scene of Mao II reminiscent of Taxi Driver — important film for DeLillo</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Lee’s confusion in the larger plot — almost too perfect; CIA thought they were history’s actors</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Trotsky as revolutionary — the aura/idea; DeLillo’s fascination with Trotsky</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Lee switches names — sense of importance; pg. 416 his detachment from his name; pg. 189 “citizen Oswald” — interest in names</li> </ul> April 2 – Don DeLillo, Mao II (Penguin, 1992 [1991]), pp 94 – 153. Watch: Michael Hoffman, Game 6 (2006) Watch: Don DeLillo: The Word, The Image, The Gun <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfVLP8H3WTI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfVLP8H3WTI</a> Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Prophecy and the idea of crowds = social media today</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mao II shaped around the number of crowds; photographs; real events — Moon is a real figure, wedding took place; DeLillo taking real events and shaping them slightly</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Novel taken up with non-fictional world events; what type of book? Satirical, dystopian, heavy on theme, novel of ideas</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Prologue: wedding at Yankee Stadium — “here they come marching into American sunlight”; wedding march music; continuous wave of linked couples; 4 POVs:</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Karen, father, Maurine, narrator</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Don’t take it completely seriously — mordant humor; Bill Gray; what kind of dramatic irony is at work? Pynchon quote as clue to the humor</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“The future belongs to crowds”— focus in prologue on something new in the world; descriptions of crowds important, things not seen before; crowd connected to image; “know the leader on a molecular level”</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Kids setting off firecrackers = atmosphere of threat; lack of individual volition, given up to the crowd; divide between cult and community</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 8: threat of losing their kid to the crowd</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Title — Mao II; pg. 20–21: images of Mao — had he ever realized the deeper meaning of Mao? Dichotomy — “eager to be undistracted, ray-gunned by fame and death” then “work that was unwitting of history” but Mao is part of history</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Critique of repetition, empty symbols, creating the image — Mao removed from historical context</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Connection between reproducibility and Karen’s marriage; Andy Warhol — famous for being famous, modern celebrity, consumerism</li> </ul> April 7 Read: Don DeLillo, Mao II (Penguin, 1992 [1991]), pp 154 – 241. Precis Due Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 21: images of Chairman Mao — “work that was unwitting of history”</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mao killed millions of people, responsible for so many deaths; dissonance between the image of Mao II and the person — bright colors, pastels, lipstick makes him look like he’s smiling</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Compare to Monroe Warhol painting = flat; reproducibility debate in postmodernism — Walter Benjamin keystone essay</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What is DeLillo trying to say about crowds and images? </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Iran images — curated; if we were seeing different images (e.g. school girls killed); AI used in Gaza bombing by Israelis; manufacturing consent — corporate critique; American media = propaganda</li> </ul> April 9 Read: Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin, 2009), pp 1 – 110. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Why does Bill Gray go on that journey? Feeling throughout the novel that the outcome won’t be good; going to meet Maoist and terrorist leader = main plot; implication that no one will know what happened to him — is it moral?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Bill doesn’t want to keep writing/thinking about his manuscript; feeling trapped by his current life; people getting closer to finding him</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Scott thinks the great power of Bill lies in his silence — doesn’t want Bill to publish; image of the reclusive writer</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Duality DeLillo sets up between writer and terrorist: pg. 41 — “curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists”; terrorists now are the ones influencing society; news and disaster the only narrative people need — have writers been replaced by terrorists?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Discussion of Charlie Kirk shooting; comparison more apt when applied to media — novel vs. media</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mao II has a weaker plot — Bill’s journey also from novel-making to image-making; Scott made him an image of “reclusive writer”; Bill’s death</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Bill believes image more powerful at altering culture; banned books show they still have power</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Irony of Bill saying terrorists have taken over during Rushdie’s book being banned and he’s being threatened; people knuckled under the threat, high profile violence, publishers refusing to stock his book</li> </ul> April 14 Read Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin, 2009), pp 111 – 185. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Awe” and “the uncanny” — emotions evoked by it; how seriously are we supposed to take Bill Gray’s point</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Tank rumbling ahead of the wedding party = not destruction but everyday life; book ends and begins with a wedding; comedic tradition of ending with a wedding</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Britta taking photos — photography and death, survival after death; critiques photography as capturing only one moment in time, doesn’t capture feelings; why doesn’t Britta photograph Bill’s death?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 156: terrorists vs. novelists — “failure to be dangerous”; terrorist able to resist absorption because of commitment; don’t take Bill without irony — is he supposed to be taken at his word? Are terrorist images cutting through or apart of everything else?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mass marriage as something they don’t understand</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 239 — end of the book: ends with wedding like it began; notable guest: the tank — amazing image</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Britta’s confrontation with Rushdie; Bill’s death</li> </ul> April 16 Read Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin, 2009), pp 186 – 274. Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Ruhollah Khomeini’s funeral footage — strong reactions; Karen’s reactions in Mao II so sensitive and attuned; class discusses if that’s true today — generational difference, did DeLillo get it wrong?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Propaganda and social media; does the future belong to crowds?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Digital crowds vs. past in-person crowds — “individualized crowds” online, echo chambers; pseudo crowd — should we distinguish it? Does it fit with what DeLillo is talking about?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Sense of belonging important to DeLillo’s crowd; attempts to organize today, how difficult it is</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">News more complex now; what was the Khomeini funeral footage saying? Getting us closer to understanding or dividing us, making them seem strange?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Like the Mao II wedding — something never seen before, awe; is DeLillo saying there’s an intimacy with crowds? Was his idea of crowds wrong?</li> </ul> April 21 Read Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin, 2009), pp 275 – 369. Watch: Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice (2014) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Simple Art of Murder — another work; Inherent Vice as detective novel; Larry “Doc” Sportello — is he a man of honor? Somewhat; lustful and distracted, we accompany him throughout</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 1: femme fatale coming along the alley — bifurcated, looking to the past and present; looks like she swore she never would; revolution in Paris — you throw paving stones, paving stones placed on a layer of sand = level of simulation; realm of liberation found through revolution, lightly disguised</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Takes place spring 1970; one conspiracy centered around real estate development — changing the city, moving people around; pg. 17 Compton development</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">More than a reflection about a decade (60s) — talking about tendencies in our country; 60s when US leaned toward its best/progressive side but also “dark forces” acting during this era; very tumultuous time; slipping away of the promise of the 60s</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Try to read this book as something more general — political promise, progress, but through a noir lens</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Similarities to Vineland but also differences — full of plot; how does POV alter concerns in the narrative? Writing about the end of something — “inherent vice”; what’s the inherent vice of the 60s?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What is Bigfoot’s side gig besides cop? Pg. 9 — real estate employing Bigfoot; formidable institutions fighting them, they have a lot to lose — Mickey Wolfman, people who have stuff; Wolfman kidnapped because he wants to be less capitalist and build affordable housing</li> </ul> April 23 Read Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin, 2009) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Theory around postmodernism — are the definitions still relevant or is it a category that’s been left behind? General question about the works read: are they speaking to us? Are we in something entirely different now? Do they apply to current culture?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Difference between high and low culture, “schlock and kitsch”; pastiche as blank parody; pastiche being postmodern and parody being modern</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Why is Inherent Vice a “detective novel”? Revenge tragedy of Crying of Lot 49 — is it a parody? Doc on an epistemological quest — he’s on drugs, discovers everyone around him is from a nonexistent utopia-like place; not really a parody of detective novels — saying it’s a parody misses the point</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Is Warhol’s “Diamond Dust Shoes” a deep commentary on politics/society or just mass production? Warhol’s art as postmodern</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">L.H.O.O.Q. — Mona Lisa with a mustache, “she has a hot ass”; Mona Lisa as quintessential artwork; the institution of art — why did it shock people; our reverence for art divorced from image; does L.H.O.O.Q. and Campbell’s Soup broaden the idea of art?</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Double coding — popular and fun but also speaks to elite as art; things as cultural objects taking their place because produced by late capitalism — commodity production</li> </ul> April 28 Read Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (Penguin 2009) Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pg. 351 “shindig at Channel View Estates” — looking back at photograph of it; death of Glenn and Shasta, disappearances</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Blobs of color, mosaic of doubt — becomes inherent vice, like original sin</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Act of return” — Doc as detective and epistemological seeker seeking truth; what is the act of return? Returning to the past, returning to the scene of the crime/memory; metaphor for trying to return to the 60s but being unable to; his project of figuring out all these plots but it’s not possible; can’t see who the killer was — inability to go into the past</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">1970: things are ending; ideals around liberation and freedom seem to be going away; Manson about to go to trial — why is he so present in the book? Shift from peace and love to cult/violence — underlines end of era</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Golden Fang is abandoned</li> </ul> April 30 Read Alan Kirby’s “The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond” ( <a href="https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond)">https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond)</a> Discussion Notes: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond” — discussing Inherent Vice alongside this analysis</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Is the pastiche of detective novels postmodern? Significant? DeLillo and Pynchon thought of as the postmodern writers</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Golden Fang: paranoid fantasy — personification of late stage capitalism, control everything; make drugs, sell drugs, sell rehab; capitalism has taken over everything; liberation taken by the system/integrated</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Post-postmodernism; Jameson: postmodernism deeply integrated into late capitalism</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Change at calling into shows (Big Brother); nostalgia of the 60s</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">DeLillo and Pynchon have different views and different attachments to the time; DeLillo focuses on men trying to become part of history</li> </ul> May 8 Fifteen Page Final Paper Due

Mark Danner

Prophets of the Postmodern

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