What We Write Now

English III

What We Write Now

What trends and techniques are associated with literature written in the last 60 years?

Learning Outcomes

Identify themes and devices associated with literature written in the later 20th and early 21st centuries.

01

02

Describe the historical context for Postmodern literature.

03

Identify and connect main ideas in informational text.

Do Now:

Below are three brief excerpts (or descriptions) from modern texts:

1. A novel that jumps between timelines and perspectives.
2. A poem written in free verse that focuses on everyday experiences.
3. A story told by an unreliable narrator who directly addresses the reader.

Task:

• Choose one example.
• In 3–4 sentences, respond to the following:
• What technique or trend do you notice?
• Why do you think this approach is effective for modern audiences?

Please tell me in the chat!

No Right Answer

What features characterize contemporary American literature?

During the first half of the 20th century, most literary writers and their colleagues working in other artistic mediums were part of the Modernist movement. As the century wore on, though, many Americans began to question the underlying assumptions and principles of Modernism. Specifically, they expressed skepticism about the artist's ability to bring order to the chaos of modern life or to redeem its less positive qualities through art. Postmodernists, as this group is sometimes called, were more likely to embrace the chaos and to try to represent it realistically in their creative works. Postmodernism is the movement that seemed to replace Modernism, though its legitimacy as a unified movement is often questioned. What artistic impulses were characteristic of Postmodernism? See the following slides below to learn more about the goals and methods of Postmodern writers.

Experimentation

Creating Chaos

While Modernist writers of the early 20th century also rejected many aspects of the American literary tradition, they had distinct reasons for the changes they proposed. They wanted to express their ideas about human experience more directly and authentically--without the limitations imposed by the rules of conventional literary forms. Free verse and more spare prose styles, which seemed experimental at the time, allowed these writers to say what they meant simply and without ornamentation. Postmodern writers, on the other hand, tend to view experiments with form as part of the message; they want to represent the act of writing itself, when done most authentically, as an experiment. According to many contemporary authors, "making it new" requires one to make it different every time.

For Postmodern writers and artists, the chaotic nature of modern life is often a condition to be celebrated rather than "solved" or organized by the calm voices of reason. Contemporary writers seek to represent the crazy unpredictability of life in the 20th century without attempting to impose a traditional logic on that experience. Indeed, many would claim that there is little that is logical about contemporary life, and that truly authentic art does not try to "tame" the chaos by asserting a neat and tidy narrative to describe human experience. As a result, some contemporary literature can be difficult to understand and interpret. After all, if the writer believes that contemporary life is nonsensical, they're not likely to provide a single, unified meaning that a reader can identify and absorb.

Multiple Perspectives

One quality of contemporary American life that makes it difficult to describe in the more simple and direct ways favored by Modernists is its variability. Until the early years of the 20th century, almost all literature that was published in the United States was written by writers with similar ethnic backgrounds--they were mostly white, male, educated, and wealthy enough to have time to write. By the 1960s, though, it was clear that many more Americans had something to say, if they could only find a way to publish their ideas. The literary world expanded to include authors of different races, genders, ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic levels, and American readers who kept up with the changes soon realized that there was no one universal American experience. To appreciate a Postmodern approach to literature, a reader must be prepared to do the imaginative work of listening to and empathizing with each author's individual story.

Stop Making Sense

What does Postmodern literature attempt to do?

It can be difficult to identify evidence of a Postmodern approach in a literary work. One characteristic of the movement is the tendency of its members to approach each work of art differently and to create something that resists easy interpretation. Still, such rejection of deliberate meaning-making can itself suggest a Postmodern sensibility at work. Consider some brief examples of what Postmodern writers may try to do, and what it looks like when they succeed. *Watch video in textbook

In Context

What aspects of contemporary life most influenced Postmodernism?

Like the authors of any era, today's writers are heavily influenced by the world they live in. The Postmodern era is characterized by resilience in the face of adversity, rapid adaptation to change, and the celebration of diversity, but it also causes many Americans to feel cynical and alienated from each other. As a result, the light and playful style of contemporary literature can turn dark or satirical in just a few words. Read this essay to learn more about the issues and events that shaped contemporary literature.

Most literary scholars place the start of postmodernism in the early 1950s, though they may identify a few earlier stories and authors as “predictive” of the shift away from more straightforward forms of meaning-making. In the fifties, Americans were doing their best to leave the trauma and difficulty of World War II behind them. The culture generally was focused on the production and consumption of goods, now that factories and the American labor force were no longer focused on making the weapons and other equipment needed to wage a war. While things settled down at home and Americans turned their attention to domestic concerns, Europe found itself devastated by battle and upheaval. The Allies (the United States, Britain, and France) occupied and defeated Nazi Germany from the west just as troops from the Soviet Union were marching toward Germany from the east. The two armies met in Berlin, where they effectively divided Northern Europe in two—with West Germany controlled by the Allies and East Germany in the hands of the Soviets. Unfortunately, the United States and the Soviet Union, the world’s two remaining superpowers after the war’s conclusion in 1945, held vastly different ideas about how to shape post-war Europe. The Soviet Union was a communist country, and its leaders were committed to spreading their form of government as far beyond their own borders as they could manage. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was particularly concerned with securing his country’s future power. One of his strategies for maintaining Russia’s dominance as a superpower was to absorb the countries of Eastern Europe into the Soviet sphere of

influence, effectively extending the country’s borders, or at least creating a “buffer zone” around the Soviet Union. Another strategy of Stalin’s was to supporting communist revolutions in Asia, Africa, and South America. The leaders of Western democracies like Britain, France, and the United States were not pleased with the Soviet Union’s attempts to expand its reach around the world. They wanted to contain the Soviets and their communist ideology as much as possible. In the post-war world, the United States was considered the champion of capitalism, civil rights, and other democratic values, and its leaders worked to ensure that those values became predominant in the world instead of communism, which Americans viewed as oppressive and unsustainable. As far as the U.S. and its allies were concerned, the Soviet regime must be kept confined within its existing borders. The result was the Cold War, a decades-long period of tension between the world’s two most powerful countries. The Cold War lasted from 1945 until the early 1990s. During that time, both superpowers developed large arsenals of nuclear weapons that were capable of destroying the entire human race several times over. Neither side wanted the conflict to reach that point. Thus, instead of engaging each other directly, the United States and the Soviet Union fought “proxy wars” in vulnerable and unstable countries; each superpower supported the opposite side in civil wars that took place in countries far from either the Soviet Union or the United States. During the Korean War, for example, the Soviet Union and another communist country, China, supported North Korea while the United States and its

allies supported South Korea. Once the larger, more powerful countries became involved in what had been a local conflict, the war’s main issue was whether Korea would become communist country or democratic one. The Vietnam War was probably the most infamous proxy war of the twentieth century. It began in 1946, when Vietnamese nationalists attacked the French forces that occupied Vietnam as a result of France’s colonization of the country. To France, Vietnam was a colony, and some Vietnamese were okay with that arrangement. Other Vietnamese people wanted independence from France, though, and demanded that French forces leave them to run their own country. The first phase of the war lasted from 1946 to 1954 and ended with the defeat of the French occupiers. European leaders quickly stepped in and divided Vietnam into two sections--North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Communist rebels ruled in the North, and a democratic government was installed in the South. From the beginning, the sectioning of Vietnam was meant to be temporary, and the two regions were expected to eventually reunite under one government. However, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the people of Vietnam had different ideas about which kind of government would unite the two parts of the country: communism or democracy. American troops entered Vietnam in the 1950s as “military advisers,” thought their mission was always to maintain democratic rule. A full-fledged war broke out in the 1960s, with the Soviet Union and China supporting the North’s plan to unite Vietnam under communism and the United States supporting the South’s desire to remain democratic.

The second phase of the Vietnam War lasted until 1975, when North Vietnamese troops captured the Southern capital of Saigon. American troops had already abandoned the country two years earlier, in part because of protests against the conflict by citizens back at home. To raise enough troops for the war, the American government had instituted a draft, which proved to be extremely unpopular and turned many Americans against the country’s involvement in Vietnam. Some Americans opposed the Vietnam War on principle rather than because of their opposition to the draft; they believed that any nation should be able to determine its own form of government, peacefully and without intervention from other countries. The death toll among Vietnamese citizens was extremely high, and as the war dragged on into the 1970s, reports began to reach the United States that American troops had been involved in massacres of civilians. Steady increases in the number of American casualties also worked to lesson American enthusiasm for promoting democracy abroad using armed soldiers. Some Americans saw opposition to the Vietnam war as citizens’ betrayal of the United States and its mission to keep the world free of communist influence. In the decade before the Vietnam War, anti-communist paranoia had reached an all-time high. An American senator, Joseph McCarthy, accused the government and the American media of ignoring or minimizing the presence of Soviet spies and sympathizers among the employees of government agencies and departments. Even average Americans had begun to fear Soviet infiltration and to suspect the influence of hidden communists in their own

communities, a phenomenon now known as the “Red Scare.” Though they were mostly unrelated to communism itself, the Vietnam anti-war protests of the 1960s rekindled some citizens’ fears that anti-American and pro-Soviet agents were living and working within the United States. Anti-war protests of the 1960s coincided with the Civil Rights Movement, an equally volatile cultural moment in the history of the United States. Activists in the Civil Rights Movement worked to oppose and reverse the “Jim Crow” laws that had been in place in most of the South since the 1870s. The laws were used to reinforce and provide a legal basis for segregation. They also were often used by local election officials to deprive black Americans of their right to vote. Any protests against segregation and in favor of equal rights could result in violence against activists and against the local population of African Americans. Even in the North, where racial segregation wasn’t the law of the land, black Americans were unofficially forced into poorer neighborhoods and deprived of equal opportunities. In these ways, the unsettled business of the Civil War and Reconstruction continued to cause problems well into the twentieth century. Some historians describe the most active period of the Civil Rights Movement as lasting from 1954 to 1965. During this time, several popular and widely recognized figures were urging black Americans to claim their equal rights as citizens of the United States, including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with several important Supreme Court decisions, helped the Civil Rights Movement claim victory, but not before

many assassinations, riots, protests, and other moments of civil unrest took place throughout the country. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving the United States as the world’s lone superpower and the victor of the long Cold War. For the rest of the century, American leaders used their power to intervene in other global conflicts, but for the most part American society was turning in on itself. Immigration from Asia and Latin America was increasing rapidly, and many leaders and institutions were promoting and celebrating racial and ethnic diversity. It was a significant change for citizens of the United States, to leave behind or render powerless the white nationalism of the Civil Rights era. However, some Americans remained unsettled or doubtful about where the country was heading demographically and socially. The racial and ethnic make-up of the American population has changed significantly over the past 300 years and will continue to do so. And with the number of interracial marriages consistently increasing, the distinction between “white” and other races may become less clear and meaningful over time. Debates about the future of American have led to “culture wars” over issues like abortion, immigration, and the role of religion in American society. Technological developments have also changed the culture of the United States--in unprecedented and essentially unpredictable ways. The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century was followed by the

Digital Revolution, which began in the 1950s with significant advances in computer technology. The capabilities of computers have been increasing rapidly ever since. Fifty years ago, a weak computer might fill up an entire room. Today, significantly more powerful computers fit in a pocket. Computer technology has revolutionized every industry in the world, and the internet allows people to connect to other individuals all over the world instantaneously. The internet also allows artists to easily create and share their own media. Instead of working through publishers and editors to share their creations with the world, artists can upload and distribute them freely and inexpensively. The full potential and consequences of all those innovations—computers, the internet, and free and open media distribution—may not be fully understood for years. With all of the change and upheaval that have characterized the last one hundred years, it should surprise no one that art and literature tend to express elements of uncertainty and unpredictability. Postmodern authors face an unusual challenge—portraying an existence that is by its nature both chaotic and paradoxical. Today, we know more than we’ve ever known about our planet and our own bodies, yet we also know that what is considered a true fact today may become myth or misunderstanding tomorrow; like everything else about contemporary life, knowledge is always changing. No one, least of all the experts in their fields, can be entirely sure about much of anything.

Text Messages

What themes will you encounter in this module's literature?

The transformation in American life and culture in the past 60 years represents more change, at least technologically, than occurred during the country's first 200 years all together. This disruption in what constitutes everyday life for Americans is the subject of much Postmodern literature. Use the tabs below to explore some of the themes that consistently emerge from authors living in such an amazing (and also sometimes confusing and terrifying) age.

The Anti-Narrative

Isn't It Ironic?

More than any other literary movement in American history, Postmodernism is associated with stories that "mess with" readers' expectations of a narrative. As a very young child, you learned what to expect from a story--basically, a beginning, middle, and end. Once you were able to read, you learned that certain things happen or get revealed at different points in a story. Postmodern fiction often uses your learned expectations of narrative to make a point, by doing something very different with a story's structure, such as including no exposition whatsoever, or providing a climax that is really more of an anti-climax.

As you know from your own personal experiences, the contemporary era is a complex time full of paradoxes that sometimes can only be understood as ironic. Most of the literature you read in this module will include some type of irony. In some contemporary literature, the irony is subtle and limited to a few lines or passages. In other works, an overarching irony lies at the center of the story or poem; these types of literature often function as social or political satires of contemporary life.

Everything, All at Once

Text to Text

In the 21st century, we know well what it's like to be bombarded by words and images. They come at us constantly--from television, radio, the Internet, billboards, and the sides of buildings. Though such media saturation may seem normal to us, it's a fairly recent phenomenon, and many of the authors you read in this module are old enough to remember what life was like before the Information Age. Some of their stories and poems explore how the rapid changes of recent times may affect important aspects of human life.

In earlier eras, American literature that referenced other texts included allusions to the Christian Bible, to classical Greek literature, or to works by British literary figures like Shakespeare. In the Postmodern era, any text can serve as a point of departure or connection--including nonliterary texts. The contemporary writers that will you study in this module refer to such diverse sources of wisdom as the United States Constitution, The Art of War by Sun Tzu (an ancient Chinese military general and philosopher), and the television series The Walking Dead.

Foreign Words

While the English language has a very wide selection of words and phrases, there are various foreign words and phrases that fit best and have become a part of English as we know it. Take a look at the following terms and see if you can determine their meaning.

Term/ Phrase

Definition

for the special purpose or end presently under consideration: such as a committee formed [ad hoc] to deal with the issue.

Ad hoc

A slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion.

Faux Pas

An inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises.

Non sequitur

Modus operandi

Mode of operating or working.

Skill & Substance: What should you expect to learn in this module?

As you explore the works of contemporary writers in this module, you'll apply skills that you learned in earlier grades and courses, but you'll extend and combine those skills in more sophisticated ways than you probably have in the past. By the end of the module, you should be able to identify characteristics and themes of Postmodernism, analyze contemporary literature in a variety of forms, and create your own multimedia literary work based on something you yourself have written. Here are some skills you'll practice along the way:

• Apply close reading skills to a wide range of literary and nonliterary texts.
• Analyze contemporary literature in ways that consider characteristics of Postmodernism.
• Describe the historical events and cultural changes that influenced writers of Postmodern literature.
• Identify connections between informational text and related works of literature.
• Design and produce your own work of multimedia literature.

Exit Ticket

• Complete the following sentence and answer the question:

• One important trend or technique in literature from the last 60 years is __________.
• Why do you think authors today use this trend or technique more than authors from earlier periods?
• Please tell me in the chat!

Take the What We Write Now Quiz in Canvas