13) Postmodernism in american literature. K. Vonnegut, j. Heller, th. Pynchon.

Postmodern fiction is a literary movement after World War II against modernist literature. It stands to question the reality, hierarchy, and organization of the principles of our society through literature. It questions the social, political, and economic conditions of certain historic and present events. “While postmodern fiction challenges mimetic representation, it also offers a new, more overtly textual and self-reflexive form of representation that exposes its own filtered or biased quality”. Instead of focusing on identifying universal themes in a literary work, it seeks the instability and ambiguity of human experience, with many interpretations. Techniques such as resurrection/reconstruction, self-reflection, and multi-narratives are all applied conventions of postmodern fiction and allow us to stray from the regular conventions of modernism.

1)Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  was an American novelist who wrote works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions . He was known for his humanist beliefs as well as being honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

The novels of such writers as  Vonnegut, Pynchon, Heller, contain elements of black humor.

2)Joseph Heller was an American satirist author. He wrote the influential Catch-22 about American servicemen during World War II. It was this work that was the origination for the expression, 'catch 22', used commonly to express absurdity in choice. Heller's second novel, Something Happened (1974). Good as Gold (1979), Heller's third novel.

3)Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. Pynchon is noted for his imagination and wild sense of humor. Styles and themes, including the fields of history, science and mathematics. Gravity's Rainbow also derives much from Pynchon's background in mathematics: at one point, the geometry of garter belts is compared with that of cathedral spires, both described as mathematical singularities. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known:V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), and Mason & Dixon (1997).

14) AFRO-AMERICAN LITERATURE. F. DOUGLAS, R. WRIGHT, T. MORRISON.

African American literature, body of literature written by Americans of African descent. Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a creative, dialogue with American letters. The result is a literature rich in expressive subtlety and social insight, offering illuminating assessments of American identities and history.

1)Frederick Douglass  1818 was an African-American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.^[  Douglass wrote several autobiographies. He eloquently described his experiences as a slave in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,.

2)Richard Nathaniel Wright (Uncle Tom's Children , The Man Who Was Almost a Man) was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. In 1938 Wright published Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of four stories. More acclaim followed in 1940 with the publication of the novel Native Son, which told the story of 20-year-old African-American male Bigger Thomas. In 1945, Wright published Black Boy, which offered a moving account of his childhood and youth in the South. He continued to write novels, including The Outsider (1953) and The Long Dream (1958), and nonfiction, such as Black Power (1954) and White Man, Listen! (1957).

3)Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon, Paradise, Beloved ) is an American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye (1970) , Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977). She also was commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner, first performed in 2005. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved and the Nobel Prize in 1993. On 29 May 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

15) MULTICULTURALIZM AND CONTEMPORARY U.S. LITERATURE. T. MORRISON, N. SCOTT, MOMADAY, A. TAN.

Multiculturalism is a term which came into usage after the idea of a "melting pot" was criticized by minorities as both assimilationist and white-dominated. The social idea of a multiplicity of racial and ethnic identities, unique yet also hybrizing greatly influenced artistic and intellectual production after the war. It is associated with identity politics and aesthetic productions generated after, and inspired by, civil rights movements of the 1950s and 60s. For our purposes here, a multiculturalist is any person of color, white ethnic, or biracial person whose work is largely oriented around issues of race and/or ethnicity. Multicultural writing after World War II is often defined by autobiographical or pseudo-autobiographical work (e.g. Carlos Bulosan and Maxine Hong Kingston), and by a growing investment in the idea that racial and ethnic minority voices are a crucial element in United States literary history and culture.

As the 20 cent ended and the 21 c began mass social and geographic mobility, the Internet, immigration, globalization, only emphasized the subjective voice in a context of cultural fragmentation. Some contemporary writers reflect a drift towards quitter, more accessible voices. For many prose writers, the region, rather than nation provides the defining geography. One of the most impressive contemporary poets is Louise Gluck. The poetry of this period is refreshing and exhilarating. The writers use everyday language to record the myriad details of everyday life, freely mixing quotidian events with cultural references.

Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon, Paradise, Beloved ) is an American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye (1970) , Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977). She also was commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner, first performed in 2005. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved and the Nobel Prize in 1993. On 29 May 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Morrison serves as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Morrison began writing fiction as part of an informal group of poets and writers at Howard University who met to discuss their work. (Tar Baby, Jazz, Love, A Mercy, Home, God Help the Child).

An award-winning poet, novelist, autobiographer, and scriptwriter, Momaday has concentrated his literary attention on that which he holds closest to his heart: the southwestern landscape, his American Indian heritage, artistic endeavor, and a synthesis of cultures. The minute detail of his passages on human and nonhuman facets of nature is masterful. His reverence for nature and his insistence that all humankind must recognize its responsibility to heal the physical and spiritual earth drive his works. Born in the Kiowa and Comanche Indian Hospital, Momaday was registered as having seven-eighths Indian blood. American Indians believe that the act of naming has the special significance of bringing the named one into existence and helping to chart his or her life course. Momaday’s mother was a teacher and a writer; his father, a teacher and an artist. Throughout Momaday’s early years, his mother shared her love of English literature with him.

Amy Tan was born in 1952 in Oakland. Amy and her brothers ignored their parents' objections and tried hard to fit into American society. Young Amy was deeply unhappy with her Asian appearance and heritage. Amy's parents had high expectations for her success. Amy then transferred to San Jose State University and earned in English and in linguistics. In 1980s she became a business writer. As with all fairy tales, The Joy Luck Club had an unlikely beginning. Tan's business writing venture was so successful that she was able to buy her mother a house. Secretly, Tan had always wanted to write fiction, but she had thrown herself so completely into her freelance career that she spent more than ninety hours a week at it. The phenomenal success of The Joy Luck Club and the unfamiliar rituals of being a celebrity made it difficult for Tan to concentrate on writing her second novel.