“A-Synchronous Messaging”: the Fictional World of Richard Powers
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Conjuring September 11, 2001: Midwest Narratives in the Time of Death
AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Jonathon M. Josten for the degree of Master of Arts in English presented on May 12, 2015. Title: Conjuring September 11, 2001: Midwest Narratives in the Time of Death Abstract approved: ______________________________________________________ Raymond J. Malewitz Over the past fourteen years since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Americans of varied political persuasions have continually identified the day as a defining moment in the history of the nation, which caused a rupture in the cultural rhythm and psyche. This sensibility is present in many narratives that considered the uniqueness of the day, with the majority of these set in New York City. However, for most Americans, the attacks were experienced in a non-local manner mediated through various technologies as well as reactionary policies of the Bush administration and retrospective accounts that followed from critics and authors. Given the disparity between narratives that surround eye-witness of the event and those perceived from afar, this thesis attempts to explore and reconcile these geographical and psychological differences by examining fictive works often described as “September 11”, which are set in the Midwest. Through this investigation of place, technologies, and difference, we can trace the development of the cultural memory of these events from catastrophe to commemoration as the analysis moves through nationalism, terrorism, and what might be defined as heartland American conservatism. Ultimately, I argue that though September 11 functioned as a catastrophic event, Americans moved to restore normalcy shortly after the attacks. That is not to say that Americans forgot September 11; instead, pre- September 11 normalcy coexisted within post- September 11 uncertainty. -
Daniel Green
DANIEL GREEN 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS RADICAL REALISTS “Like Life: Radical Realism and the Fiction of Sam Pink” (5) “Reinforcing Hard Reality: Stephen Dixon” (14) “Sincerity and the Surface: On Nicholson Baker” (19) “Not Somewhere or Anywhere” (Ottessa Moshfegh) (26) “Entering Cross River” (Rion Amilcar Scott) (30) “Contextualized Naturalism: The Artfulness of Russell Banks's Affliction” (36) “Sleights of Hand” (Philip Roth) (46) REGRESSIVE REALISTS “Richard Powers I: Forsaking Illusions” (50) “Lost in the Woods: Richard Powers, The Overstory” (58) “Safely Familiar” (Denis Johnson) (63) “Getting At The Thing Itself” (Kent Haruf” (66) “Endless Talk” (Richard Ford) (71) “Killing the Joke” (Lorrie Moore) (80) “Until the Movie Comes Out” (Richard Russo) (84) “Illusions of Substance” (Charles Baxter) (89) 3 PREFACE The underlying assumption of most of my critical writing has been that, far from representing a tangential, eccentric practice (as much of current literary culture would have it), “experimental” fiction in fact provides an indispensable service in helping to keep the literary resources of fiction refreshed. Often this entails contrasting such fiction with a conventionalized or exhausted realism, which despite the interventions of fabulists and postmodernists (not to mention the efforts of many genre writers) remains more or less the default preference in both American fiction and general-interest literary criticism. But the problem with a blanket critique of realism, especially from the years after World War II, and even more especially -
OLLI Spring 2020 the Novels of Richard Powers: an Overview
Regier – Syllabus for The Novels of Richard Powers: An Overview - 1 OLLI Spring 2020 The Novels of Richard Powers: An Overview Instructor: Willis Goth Regier E-mail address: [email protected] Course Description: Authors like to hear that their latest book is their best. When saying that about a Richard Powers novel we should always add “so far.” Every new novel makes some advance upon the others, and who is to say that one step is more important than another? Yet some novels seem to be strides rather than steps, and his latest, The Overstory (2018) is such a stride. This course will survey each of Powers’ twelve novels in chronological order, from Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985) to The Overstory. I will feature favorite passages in each novel, reflect their glories, and indicate what is distinctive about each. Powers’ readers will be reminded of novels they wish to reread. The course will also consider Powers’ novels as twelve parts of a whole which, properly put together, gives us a large look at Richard Powers. I will propose theses about the novels: They refuse to succumb to the predictabilities of a genre. They change themes, structures, and tones, though some themes recur and reassert their importance. The twelve take up complex issues and pose problems of individual responsibility. They have in common Powers’ resolution to make each unique and his determination in every case to “get it right.” Recommended: Richard Powers, The Overstory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018). Regier – Syllabus for The Novels of Richard Powers: -
European Journal of American Studies, 2-1 | 2007 “Only the Conversation Matters” 2
European journal of American studies 2-1 | 2007 Spring 2007 “Only the Conversation Matters” An interview with Richard Powers Jean-Yves Pellegrin Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/1145 DOI : 10.4000/ejas.1145 ISSN : 1991-9336 Éditeur European Association for American Studies Référence électronique Jean-Yves Pellegrin, « “Only the Conversation Matters” », European journal of American studies [En ligne], 2-1 | 2007, document 2, mis en ligne le 27 avril 2007, consulté le 08 juillet 2021. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/ejas/1145 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.1145 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 8 juillet 2021. Creative Commons License “Only the Conversation Matters” 1 “Only the Conversation Matters” An interview with Richard Powers Jean-Yves Pellegrin NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR This interview took place at the Sorbonne on the 20th of February 2006. Many thanks to Richard Powers for his exceptional kindness and patience. 1 From Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985) to The Echo Maker (2006), American novelist Richard Powers explores the effects of modern science and technology on human lives. He teaches in the Creative Writing M.F.A. program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998, has been awarded a MacArthur Fellow (1989) and is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award (1999). 2 Jean-Yves Pellegrin is Associate Professor of American literature at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). He has translated two novels by Richard Powers. 3 J-Y. -
Addition to Summer Letter
May 2020 Dear Student, You are enrolled in Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition for the coming school year. Bowling Green High School has offered this course since 1983. I thought that I would tell you a little bit about the course and what will be expected of you. Please share this letter with your parents or guardians. A.P. Literature and Composition is a year-long class that is taught on a college freshman level. This means that we will read college level texts—often from college anthologies—and we will deal with other materials generally taught in college. You should be advised that some of these texts are sophisticated and contain mature themes and/or advanced levels of difficulty. In this class we will concentrate on refining reading, writing, and critical analysis skills, as well as personal reactions to literature. A.P. Literature is not a survey course or a history of literature course so instead of studying English and world literature chronologically, we will be studying a mix of classic and contemporary pieces of fiction from all eras and from diverse cultures. This gives us an opportunity to develop more than a superficial understanding of literary works and their ideas. Writing is at the heart of this A.P. course, so you will write often in journals, in both personal and researched essays, and in creative responses. You will need to revise your writing. I have found that even good students—like you—need to refine, mature, and improve their writing skills. You will have to work diligently at revising major essays. -
Award Winners
RITA Awards (Romance) Silent in the Grave / Deanna Ray- bourn (2008) Award Tribute / Nora Roberts (2009) The Lost Recipe for Happiness / Barbara O'Neal (2010) Winners Welcome to Harmony / Jodi Thomas (2011) How to Bake a Perfect Life / Barbara O'Neal (2012) The Haunting of Maddy Clare / Simone St. James (2013) Look for the Award Winner la- bel when browsing! Oshkosh Public Library 106 Washington Ave. Oshkosh, WI 54901 Phone: 920.236.5205 E-mail: Nothing listed here sound inter- [email protected] Here are some reading suggestions to esting? help you complete the “Award Winner” square on your Summer Reading Bingo Ask the Reference Staff for card! even more awards and winners! 2016 National Book Award (Literary) The Fifth Season / NK Jemisin Pulitzer Prize (Literary) Fiction (2016) Fiction The Echo Maker / Richard Powers (2006) Gilead / Marilynn Robinson (2005) Tree of Smoke / Dennis Johnson (2007) Agatha Awards (Mystery) March /Geraldine Brooks (2006) Shadow Country / Peter Matthiessen (2008) The Virgin of Small Plains /Nancy The Road /Cormac McCarthy (2007) Let the Great World Spin / Colum McCann Pickard (2006) The Brief and Wonderous Life of Os- (2009) A Fatal Grace /Louise Penny car Wao /Junot Diaz (2008) Lord of Misrule / Jaimy Gordon (2010) (2007) Olive Kitteridge / Elizabeth Strout Salvage the Bones / Jesmyn Ward (2011) The Cruelest Month /Louise Penny (2009) The Round House / Louise Erdrich (2012) (2008) Tinker / Paul Harding (2010) The Good Lord Bird / James McBride (2013) A Brutal Telling /Louise Penny A Visit -
Richard Powers and the Post-Postmodern Novel of Ideas: Part 1: the First Four Novels
Texture: A Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 2017 Richard Powers and the Post-Postmodern Novel of Ideas: Part 1: The First Four Novels Martin Kich Professor of English Wright State University Lake Campus Abstract In producing a very substantial body of highly regarded work, Richard Powers has established himself as one of the major American novelists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Powers has taken the novel into new territory, and his work very clearly represents an acute awareness of and a conscious synthesis of the traditions in the American novel, and the novel more broadly. This essay treats Powers’ first four novels which stand as a substantial and noteworthy body of work. They demonstrate the things that make his novels distinctively his: the daunting range of interests and preoccupations; the gradual enlargement of his sensibilities, or his sense of the world, and of his place as a novelist within that world; and the continuing refinement of his skills as a novelist and his increasing sense, I think, of a cumulative legacy—of how each new novel complements his earlier efforts and yet extends it in terms of the selection and treatment of subjects, structure, characters, themes, and style. Keywords: Richard Powers, Postmodernism, Novel of Ideas, Dos Passos. Introduction Since 1985, eleven of Richard Powers’ novels have been published. His output has been very regular, with each new novel following the previous one at an interval of two to three years, with the exception of his most recent novel, Orfeo, which appeared five years after the novel that preceded it, Generosity. -
AP English Literature Summer Reading Assignment
AP English Literature Summer Reading Assignment Welcome to AP English Literature! I am looking forward to exploring some interesting reads along with you next year. One of the things which will benefit you on next year’s AP exam is having a wide range of reading in your background along with an understanding of the common symbols and patterns that authors use to create meaning in their works. In order to prepare you for the types of writing, discussion and analysis which we will have next year, please complete the following project before returning to school next year. The assignment should be completed before the first week of school. Please be familiar enough with the material that you are comfortable discussing and writing about it. Get ready for an awesome year! Have a Great Summer, Mr. Sherman The Assignment: 1. Purchase, read, and annotate How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster. As you take notes, you will want to focus on the meanings of each device as well as its origins. The better your notes are, the easier it will be to review the focus of each chapter when using it during the school year. 2. Next, select a novel “of merit” which has been published in the last 10-15 years. Consider the AP’s standards and goals (listed below) for reading which is “both wide and deep.” You will want to stay away from books which are considered “teen reads” or “brain candy.” Be able to justify your choice of novel. This should be a book which both stimulates your thinking and models skillful writing. -
Reading the Brain That Writes (Its) Self
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Brains with character: Reading and writing neuronarrative Yaczo, T.F. Publication date 2015 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Yaczo, T. F. (2015). Brains with character: Reading and writing neuronarrative. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:29 Sep 2021 Chapter One Reading The Brain That Writes (Its) Self Karin Schluter first encounters the neurologist Dr. Gerald Weber not in person but on the page. Weber’s books, Wider Than The Sky and The Three-Pound Infinity, “compiled a travelogue of every state that consciousness could enter,” and “from his first words” she immediately feels “the shock of discovering a new continent where none had been” (Powers, Echo 117). -
Ty and Multiplicity in the Novels of Richard Powers
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenEdition European journal of American studies 2-1 | 2007 Spring 2007 Surviving in the Particular? Uni(versali)ty and Multiplicity in the Novels of Richard Powers Heinz Ickstadt Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/1119 DOI: 10.4000/ejas.1119 ISSN: 1991-9336 Publisher European Association for American Studies Electronic reference Heinz Ickstadt, « Surviving in the Particular? Uni(versali)ty and Multiplicity in the Novels of Richard Powers », European journal of American studies [Online], 2-1 | 2007, document 1, Online since 22 May 2007, connection on 30 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/1119 ; DOI : 10.4000/ ejas.1119 This text was automatically generated on 30 April 2019. Creative Commons License Surviving in the Particular? Uni(versali)ty and Multiplicity in the Novels of... 1 Surviving in the Particular? Uni (versali)ty and Multiplicity in the Novels of Richard Powers Heinz Ickstadt 1 Although some of the ‘masters’ of postmodernism are still producing ‘postmodern’ narratives (e.g. Robert Coover with his recent Lucky Pierre), contemporary American fiction has largely moved ‘back’ into realism’s territory of the everyday that the postmodernists had been so determined to abandon. It is true that, as in the case of Don DeLillo, this new realism is not grounded in any ontological notion of the ‘real’ but in an experienced ‘hyper-reality’ of surface and of image. Yet it makes nevertheless use of familiar conventions of realism: its emphasis on everyday experience, the importance of family, and the question (explored in conversation and communicative interaction) of shared values. -
This Work Is Protected by Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Rights
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Keele Research Repository This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights and duplication or sale of all or part is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for research, private study, criticism/review or educational purposes. Electronic or print copies are for your own personal, non- commercial use and shall not be passed to any other individual. No quotation may be published without proper acknowledgement. For any other use, or to quote extensively from the work, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder/s. Writing complexity: the American novel and systems realism Nicola Brindley Ph.D. American Studies June 2014 Keele University Declaration Part 1. To be bound in the thesis SUBMISSION OF THESIS FOR A RESEARCH DEGREE Part I. DECLARATION by the candidate for a research degree. To be bound in the thesis Degree for which thesis being submitted Title of thesis Writing complexity: the American novel and systems realism This thesis contains confidential information and is subject to the protocol set down for the submission and examination of such a thesis. NO Date of submission 25 September 2013 Original registration date 28 September 2009 (Date of submission must comply with Regulation 2D) Name of candidate Nicola Brindley Research Institute Humanities Name of Lead Supervisor T. J. Lustig I certify that: (a) The thesis being submitted for examination is my own account of my own research (b) -
Pynchon's Bequest
Pynchon’s Bequest Robert L. McLaughlin Stephen J. Burn and Peter Dempsey, eds. Intersections: Essays on Richard Powers. Champaign: Dalkey Archive P, 2008. Paper, xxxix + 336. $29.95. Although Thomas Pynchon has famously avoided the spotlight, he and his work—especially Gravity’s Rainbow—nevertheless cast a large shadow over contemporary American fiction. In a Bloomian anxiety of influence, a subsequent generation of fiction writers—I’m thinking of writers like the late David Foster Wallace, William T. Vollmann, Rick Moody, Bradford Morrow, Mary Caponegro, Michael Chabon, A. M. Homes, Colson Whitehead, and the subject of the collection of essays under review, Richard Powers—has been inspired to write by Pynchon’s great novels but has also sought to find a way out from under their shadow. This anxiety is made more acute by the concomitant sense that the postmodernism exemplified by Pynchon and his fellow experimental writers of the sixties and seventies (Barth, Coover, Sorrentino, Gaddis, Barthelme, Reed, and so on) has reached something of a dead end. That is, postmodernism’s consciousness of language, its iconoclasm, and its questioning of all master narratives, which in the 1960s played an important role in exposing and debunking many long-held social conceits and hypocrisies, by the late 1980s and 1990s had devolved into an all-purpose irony, the rolling of the eye and the nudging in the ribs that mocks any assertion that eschews irony’s game and aspires to sincerity. As Wallace explained in a 1993 interview with Larry McCaffery, “Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S.