Powers of Possibility: Experimental American Writing Since the 1960s
- ISBN-10
- 0199609292
- ISBN-13
- 9780199609291
- Category
- Literary Criticism
- Pages
- 282
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2012
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press on Demand
- Author
- Alex Houen
Description
Powers of Possibility presents a major development in thinking about American literature, and literary practice more generally, since the 1960s. Over recent decades there has been much debate about whether terms like 'postmodernism' and the 'postmodern avant-garde' adequately account for developments in literary experimentation and in writers' engagements with history and politics. This book outlines a novel concept of literary practice, 'potentialism',which facilitates a better understanding of how opening up literary possibilities (whether in terms of experiments with style or fictional possible worlds) has enabled writers to tackle matters of power andpolitics. In showing this, the book engages with a range of genres-fiction, poetry, drama-as well as a variety of political issues, including the Vietnam War, Black Power, the Cold War, the space programmes, and counter-cultural activism. Each chapter also draws on archival material to present original scholarship on the five main authors discussed: Allen Ginsberg; LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka; William S. Burroughs; Kathy Acker; and Lyn Hejinian. These authors have rarely been discussed at lengthin relation to each other, and the book sheds a fresh perspective on how their writings can be fruitfully compared.
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