Modernism and Postmodernism in course texts
(brief and incomplete notes)

Patrick Mooney, TA
Eng 104A, Prof. Maslan
2 March 2011

These are some brief, highly subjective, very incomplete notes, based on my own personal opinion and our section discussions this week. Everything should be taken as provisional. The basic structure of the table follows notes from David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity.

After David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, pp. 340-341
(examples of modernity)Fordist modernityFlexible postmodernity(examples of postmodernity)
White folks in Their Eyeshierarchyanarchyit was a calculated withdrawal, from the life of the Republic, from its machinery. (Lot 49, 101)
The Bundren family; numerous characters in Lot 49; the closed portion of Paul D.'s head (Beloved, 49)paranoia/alienation/symptomschizophrenia/decentering/ desireMucho Maas; Beloved II's monologue; Darl; Paul D's desire for freedom of desire (Beloved 191); images of bodily fragmentation in Beloved (e.g., 101, 157, 184-5, 192); Inverarity's voices
White folks in Their Eyes; white folks in Belovedstate power/trade unionsfinancial power/individualismTristero; shady drug companies in Lot 49
The $2 obtained by hauling a load in As I Lay Dyingethics/money commodityaesthetics/monies of credit & accountInverarity's real estate fortune
Addie Bundren; Anse's teethgod the Father/materialitythe Holy Ghost/immaterialityPierce Inverarity
Faulkner; Cash Bundrenproduction/originality/ authorityreproduction/pastiche/ eclecticismPynchon
White folksinterest group politics/semanticscharismatic politics/rhetoricBaby Suggs; Allen Ginsberg
The U.S. Postal Servicecentralization/totalizationDecentralization/deconstructionW.A.S.T.E.
Janie's questmetatheory/narrative/depthlanguage games/image/surfaceTristero stamps; Oedipa's quest; Sethe's evasions (e.g., Beloved 69)
Stanley Koteks; Cash Bundrentechnical-scientific rationalitypluralistic othernessOedipa wondering what undergrounds apart from those she knew of communicated by the WASTE system (Lot 49, 101); Black politics in Beloved
What words point to in Addie's monologuesignified/industry/Protestant work ethicsignifier/temporary contract/electronic reproduction