Postmodernism and the Individual, Don DeLillo's White Noise

About this event

Prophetic in 1985 and winner of the National Book Award, White Noise is a laugh-out-loud perfect example of a humorous postmodern literary satire. That said, the topics narrated—rampant consumerism, the loss of reality in a world of representations, information overload, over-reliance on the media, plus environmental problems—are all serious matters for current debates.

This course will mostly treat the affect, media, and personal elements of postmodernism rather than its theoretical assumptions. That is, postmodernism is not primarily a doctrine but a felt condition—a lived atmosphere of anxiety, irony, saturation, distraction, and simulated meaning. Using White Noise as its central text, the course examines how postmodernity is experienced emotionally, bodily, and existentially: fear of death, background dread, media noise, consumer comfort, and the strange calm of abstraction. We will also discuss theories with the accompanying Butler text.

Before the first session, please read through the first 105 pages of White Noise, up to the section titled, "The Airborne Toxic Event."

COURSE MATERIALS

For pagination and organizational purposes, sourcing these particular editions is strongly encouraged. In addition, the instructor will provide handouts as a supplement.

White Noise: Text and Criticism by Don Delillo; Mark Osteen (Editor/Introduction). Viking Critical Library, 1998, 9th edition, 560 pgs. ISBN-13: 978-0-14-027498-1 (REQUIRED)

Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction, by Christopher Butler. Oxford University Press, 2003, 152 pgs. ISBN-13: 9780192802392. (REQUIRED)

SCHEDULE

Week One: White Noise: “Waves and Radiation,” chapters 1-20, pgs. 3-105; Butler, chapters 1 and 2

Week Two: White Noise: “The Airborne Toxic Event,” chapter 21, pgs. 109-163; Butler, chapters 3 and 4

Week Three: White Noise: “Dylarama,” chapters 22-33, pgs. 167-256; Butler, chapter 5

Week Four: White Noise: “Dylarama,” chapters 34-40, pgs. 257-326

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Lou Caton is a professor emeritus at Westfield State University. He has taught a variety of literature courses at the University of Oregon, Auburn University, and Westfield State University. Along with articles that have been published in newspapers and journals, he has two books: an edited collection (with Emory Elliott), Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age, 2002, (available from Oxford University Press), and Reading American Novels and Multicultural Aesthetics: Romancing the Postmodern Novel, 2008, (available through Palgrave-McMillan).