The novelist Lawrence Norfolk has praised the maximalist novel as a "pagemonster" that displays ethical generosity, complex considerations of difference or even contention, and room for experimentation through its sheer capaciousness. Linking such dynamics with theorizations of postmodernity by Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Linda Hutcheon, and Jean Baudrillard, this course will study four large, celebrated novels: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Martin Amis's London Fields, Sarah Waters's The Night Watch, and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.
Distribution Area
Students entering prior to Fall 2024: Humanities (HU DIST)