English 494A: Honors Seminar
Professor Gillian Harkins
T/TH 9:30-11:20 AM in LOW 105
Office Hours: T/TH 12-1 PM in 506-A Padelford Hall or zoom by appointment
English Honors Seminar:
Postmodern / Fiction
Finally, it must be clear that our business is not to supply reality but to invent allusions to the conceivable which cannot be presented.
-- Jean-François Lyotard, “What is Postmodernism?” (1979/1984)
Thus, features of postmodernity that appear to characterize some of the historical experiences I describe here can be seen to derive to a great extent from the inventions and innovations of marginalized global peoples struggling to materially imagine themselves out of present, discrepant conditions of modernity.
-- Neferti X.M. Tadiar, Things Fall Away (2009)
But the careful work designed to document the fragile construction of “the real” has also been hijacked from the other side: the neoliberal claim that postmodernists do not believe in any truth has been symbolically discounted and transformed into a cynical assault on any notion of facticity.
-- Cindy Patton, “Foreword” to AIDS and the Distribution of Crises (2020)
Course Description: What is postmodernism? Or perhaps we should ask, what was postmodernism? In the later twentieth century, critics coined the term “postmodernism” to describe a cluster of cultural and aesthetic experiments allegedly marking the end or limits of modernist representation. Few agreed on what precisely characterized postmodern arts and culture, or whether indeed something distinct or new was happening at all. Much of this discussion depended on how, or even whether, any given critic defined “modernism” as a cultural/aesthetic mode or more generally its tether to “modernity” as a broader historical concept. Debates about postmodernism foundered repeatedly on the question of modernity writ large: had the world-systems wrought through capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, and imperialism reached some kind of crisis-point? If so, was this an “end” of some kind, in which case for what or for whom? Or was this merely a transformation without a predictable future, in which case what modes of living or forms of being might be emergent or resurgent? Were cultural forms and aesthetic modes relevant to these broader changes, and if they were, what kinds of critical responses helped clarify the ways “fiction,” for instance, participated in world-historical changes of this kind?
This Honors seminar will return to these debates about postmodernism from the vantage points of 2025-26. We will primarily read later twentieth century works speculating on the ways a changing world impacted arts and ideas, with a specific focus on literary fiction and its alleged role in revealing or remaking relations of power in moments of dramatic and declared change. Our core readings will be novels alongside critical and philosophical writings about modernity and its privileged modes of representation. Our aim in revisiting postmodernism will be to consider its relevance to our more recent present, including a possible turn to works written in the twenty-first century which explore similar themes and questions. Our method is to engage these works in ways that develop your research skills and leave time for you to practice the course’s research skills in preparation for the Honors Thesis in Spring.
Course Format: The Course is planned as an in-person course to be held on UW Seattle Campus. If we need to move the course on-line, I will adapt our course for delivery through the UW Canvas course platform.
Course Readings: Most readings for this course will be accessed through the Canvas website. Please let me know if you have problems accessing course materials. Two novels are required for this course, available for purchase through the University Bookstore or independently: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) and Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rainforest (1990).
Course Objectives:
- Define and discuss keywords
- Define and discuss frameworks
- Define and discuss methods
- Prepare for Honors thesis
- Practice research proposal
Course Requirements
- Active Learning: You will be expected to participate actively in your own learning process by contributing to in-class discussion activities. This means you will come to class with the assigned reading completed and prepared to ask a question or make a comment about that reading. We will come up with strategies for class discussion together at the start of the course, starting from these proposed approaches [canvas link]. Course Course Grade: 20%
- Weekly Portfolios: You will engage in weekly writing assignments focused on a prompt related to the week’s readings and discussion. Each portfolio assignment focuses on a specific skill related to your Honors Thesis research and writing. By the end of our course, you will have practiced research-driven inquiry and be well-prepared for your Spring Honors Thesis seminar. These are low-stakes writing assignments, with a credit/no-credit score. Course Grade: 40%
- Honors Thesis Proposal: The final weeks of the course will be dedicated to your own research plan for the Spring Honors Thesis. You will visit the library, interview a faculty member, refine a specific focus, draft research questions, describe possible frameworks/methods, and create a preliminary bibliography and research plan. This will result in a formal Honors Thesis proposal to be workshopped with peers and submitted at the end of the course. Course Grade: 40%
Course Policies
- Academic Conduct: We all share responsibility for creating a positive shared learning community. Everyone is invited to raise questions and offer additional perspectives about any materials discussed in class. Everyone is also expected to contribute their ideas in a manner that is thoughtful and respectful of the ideas expressed by others.
- Academic Integrity: The University takes academic integrity very seriously. Behaving with integrity is part of our responsibility to our shared learning community. Please review this University of Washington website for a definition and explanation of academic misconduct. All work submitted for this course must be your own. Use of generative AI will be considered academic misconduct. The assignments in this class have been designed to challenge you to develop creativity, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills. Using AI technology will limit your capacity to develop these skills and to meet the learning goals of this course. If you are confused or have any questions about a specific instance, please feel free to see me in advance of the due date.
- Academic Accommodations: It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please activate your accommodations via myDRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented in this course. If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations.
- Religious Accommodations: Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy, Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks sof this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.
Additional Resources
- Additional support for technology access, writing and research support, financial and health needs, food, parenting, and legal resources and have been gathered at this link: https://english.washington.edu/resources-times-need
- Advising appointments with the new Humanities Advising Center can be scheduled here: https://hasc.washington.edu/schedule-appointment