This course is themed around postmodernism/postmodernity, also known as: "The Literature of Exhaustion," The Society of the Spectacle, "the politics of representation," The Logic of Late Capitalism, "the end of grand narratives," "the end of history," a slip into a "hyperreality," or a "loss of meaning" to name but a few of the many varied definitions. Postmodernity describes a world whereas Philip Roth says: "the American writer in the middle of the twentieth century has his hands full in trying to understand, describe, and then make credible much of American reality. It stupefies, it sickens, it infuriates, and finally it is even a kind of embarrassment to one's own meager imagination. The actuality is continually outdoing our talents, the culture tosses up figures almost daily that are the envy of any novelist." How does fiction respond to a world that seems stranger than fiction? How do we understand and navigate a world in which nothing is certain, cruelty and violence seem sure, and escape feels impossible, a world in which it feels that everything has happened before ("First as tragedy, then as farce")? How do we make sense of our most basic perceptions of reality and should we trust them? What is language and what can it truly teach us? What are the limits to knowledge? Postmodernism asks these questions and engages in a ruthless critique of everything. We will learn its critical method of inquiry and grow confident in reading, interpreting, and writing about difficult texts of philosophy and social theory, as well as works of literature.