Representation and Decoration in a Postmodern Age

Edited by Alfred Hornung and Rüdiger Kunow.

16 papers by European and American critics analyze different forms of representation and decoration in twentieth-century American literature and the arts from the critical perspective of a postmodern age. They range from theoretical discussions of non-representational art forms and the defense of literary representation against deconstructive practices to the manifestation of political representation in postcolonial works. The displacement of decorative elements in modern art and the resurgence of decoration in postmodernism is the focus of articles on modern American and contemporary ethnic painters as well as on American postcards. The interaction of representative and decorative techniques provides the basis for new readings of literary texts and for the analysis of technological intelligence. The volume is divided into five topic fields: I. Theory; II. Novels; III. Art; IV. Drama; V. Emotions. - Contents: Alfred Hornung/Rüdiger Kunow: Repräsentation and Decoration. Introduction. - Herbert Grabes: (Re)presentation. Epistemological and Ontologjcal Underpinnings of Twentieth-Century Art. - Lothar Bredella: Representation in Literary Texts. - Hans Bertens: On the Far and Dubious Reach of Literary Criticism. - Theo D'haen: The Representational Logic of Post-Americanist Narratives. - Günter H. Lenz: Radical Cosmopolitanism. W.E.B. Du Bois, Germany, and African American Pragmatist Visions for Twenty-First Century Europe. - Mita Banerjee: Color Me Beautiful. Naturalism/Naturalization in Frank Norris' "The Octopus". - William Goetzmann: An Epistemology of Violence. Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" and Sam Chamberlain's "My Confession". - Marc Priewe: Visions of "Queer Aztlán". Ethnicity, Sexual Preference and the Invention of Community in Terri de la Peña's "Margins". - Robert Crunden: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, and the Personal Context of German-American Cultural Relations in the 1920s. - Jeffrey L. Meikle: Foregrounded Vistas. Representing America in Linen Postcard Views, 1930-1950. - Lorraine Morales Cox: The Decorative Aesthetic as a Critical Painting Practice. The Art of Siona Benjamin. - Jochen Achilles: The Synchronicity of the Modern and the Postmodern. Eugene O'Neill's Representations of Blackness and the African-American Drama of August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks. - Alfred Hornung: Musical Word-Painting. August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and "The Piano Lesson". - Richard Martin: "The Vital Signature". Autobiographical Representation in Ted Hughes's "Birthday Letters". - Kathleen Woodward: A Feeling for the Cyborg. - Rüdiger Kunow: The Coming of Age. The Descriptive Organization of Later Life. - XVIII,309 Seiten mit 33 Abb., gebunden (American Studies - A Monograph Series; Vol. 94/Universitätsverlag Winter 2009)