U.S. Literature: Chaos and Historiographic Metafiction

The references listed below approach two different issues that go hand in hand in many contemporary US novels and amount to an ultimate ungraspability of meaning. On the one hand, the connection between chaos theory and metafictional texts results in the infinite nature of interpretation. On the other, the relationship between history and fiction in postmodern historiographic metafiction reveals the inevitably subjective, narrative quality of ?historical facts?.

Benedict, Francesca. 1995. ?From Story to History and Back: History in North American Literature in the 1980s.? Postmodern Studies 11. Narrative Turns and Minor Genres in Postmodernism. Theo D?haen and Hans Bertens, eds. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 115-132.

Bennett, David. 1990. ?Postmodernism and Vision: Ways of Seeing (at) the End of History.? Postmodern Studies 3. History and Post-War Writing. Theo D?haen and Hans Bertens, eds. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 259-279.

Breinig, Helmbrecht. 1994. ??(Hi)storytelling as Deconstruction and Seduction: The Columbus Novels of Stephen Marlowe and Michael Dorris/Louise Erdrich.? Historiographic Metafiction in Modern American and Canadian Literature. In Bernd Engler and Kurt Müller, eds. Paderborn, München, Wien and Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh. 325-246.

Brown, Charles Brockden. 1800. ?The Difference between History and Romance.? Monthly Magazine, 2.4 (April): 251-253.

Calvo, Mónica. 2001. ?Chaos and Borders in Stephen Marlowe?s The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus.? Beyond Borders: Re-defining Generic and Ontological Boundaries. Ramón Plo-AlastruÉ and María JesÚs Martínez-Alfaro, eds. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. 55-65.

Carr, E. H. 1983. What is History? Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin.

Christensen, Inger. 1981. The Meaning of Metafiction. Bergen, Oslo, Tromso: Universitetsforlaget.

Collado Rodríguez, Francisco. 2000. ?American Historiographic Metafiction and European Tradition: The Case of Marlowe?s The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus.? Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, 7. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla: 103-113.

---. 2004. El orden del caos: literatura, política y posthumanidad en la narrativa de Thomas Pynchon. València: Universitat de València. 

Davies, Paul. 1989 (1987). The Cosmic Blueprint. London, Sydney and Wellington: Unwin.

Davies, Paul and John Gribbin. 1992 (1991). The Matter Myth. Beyond Chaos and Complexity. London and New York: Penguin.

Deleuze, Gilles and FÉlix Guattari. 2003 (1972). Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism & Schizophrenia. London and New York: Continuum.

Den Boer, Hans. 1999. ?The Truthful Fiction of the Death and Life of the Author: Cervantes and Marlowe.? The Author as Character: Representing Historical Writers in Western Literature. Paul Franssen and Ton Hoenselaars, eds. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP; London: Associate UP. 264-274.                       

Engler, Bernd and Kurt Müller, eds. 1994. Historiographic Metafiction in Modern American and Canadian Literature. Paderborn, München, Wien and Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh.

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish. London: Tavistock.

---. 1980. Power/Knowledge. Brighton: Harvester.

---. 2003 (1961). Madness and Civilization. A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. London: Routledge.

Fowler, Alastair. 1982.Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes. Oxford: Clarendon.    

Genette, Gerard. 1982. Palimpsestes. Paris: Seuil.

Gleick, James. 1991 (1987). Chaos. Making a New Science. London: Cardinal.

Hayles, N. Katherine. 1990. ?Self-Reflexive Metaphors in Maxwell?s demon and Shannon?s Choice. Finding Passages.? Literature and Science: Theory and Practice. Stuart Peterfreund, ed. Boston: Northeastern UP. 209-237.

Heffernan, Nick. 1994. ?Oedipus Wrecks? Or, Whatever Happened to Deleuze and Guattari?? Redirections in Critical Theory. Truth, Self, Action, History. Bernard McGuirk, ed. London and New Cork: Routledge. 110-165.

Hutcheon, Linda. 1985. A Theory of Parody. The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. London and New York: Methuen.

---. 1988. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London and New York: Routledge.

---. 1989. The Politics of Postmodernism. London and New York: Routledge.

Mchale, Brian. 1993 (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London and New York: Routledge.

Paulson, William. 1991. ?Literature, Complexity, Interdisciplinarity.? Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. N. Katherine Hayles, ed. Chicago and London: Chicago UP. 37-53.

Prigogine, Ilya and Isabelle Stengers. 1985 (1984). Order Out of Chaos: Man?s New Dialogue with Nature. London: Flamingo.

Smith, Wendy. 1996. ?Stephen Marlowe: Rootless in Art and in Life.? Publishers Weekly, 243.47 (Nov 18): 50-51.

Steinmetz, Horst. 1995. ?History in Fiction ? History as Fiction: On the Relations Between Literature and History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.? Postmodern Studies 11. Narrative Turns and Minor Genres in Postmodernism. Theo D?haen and Hans Bertens, eds. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 81-103.

Stoicheff, Peter. 1991. ?The Chaos of Metafiction.? Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. N. Katherine Hayles, ed. Chicago and London: Chicago UP. 85-99.

Stonehill, Brian. 1988. The Self-Conscious Novel. Artifice in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon. Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania P.  

Thither, Allen. 1990. ?Postmodern Fiction.? Postmodern Studies 3. History and Post-War Writing. Theo D?haen and Hans Bertens, eds. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 9-31.

Urbina, Eduardo. 1998. ?Historias verdaderas y la verdad de la historia: Fernando Arrabal vs. Stephen Marlowe.? Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. 18.2: 158-169.

Waugh, Patricia. 1990 (1984). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London and New York: Routledge. 

Wesseling, Elisabeth. 1991. Writing History as a Prophet. Postmodernist Innovations of the Historical Novel. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.   

White, Hayden. 1986 (1978). Tropics of Discourse. Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP.