The New Pynchon Studies

The essays in this collection are at the forefront of Pynchon studies, representing distinctively twenty-first century approaches to his work.

Joanna Freer (Edited by)

9781108474467, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 May 2019

274 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.54 kg

'A valuable resource for serious study of Pynchon … Highly recommended.' L. Schachterle, Choice

This book captures a cross-section of the most significant recent developments in criticism on one of the most challenging authors of our time. It brings together essays by a new generation of Pynchon critics alongside some more established names in the field, building on and moving beyond existing critical paradigms in the study of Pynchon's work. In a critical landscape in which the postmodernism of Pynchon's earlier novels has been thoroughly established, this collection presents fresh analytical methodologies and new perspectives on Pynchon's fiction informed by the more expansive, globalized, and politicized network models that undergird recent advances in American literary theory and criticism. The New Pynchon Studies illustrates how Pynchon's later novels, Against the Day, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge, demand a re-orientation of our approach to his entire oeuvre and enables readers to trace lines of continuity and development in his writing from V. to the present day.

Introduction: Pynchon studies in the twenty-first century Joanna Freer
1. Pynchon and post-postmodernism Sascha Pöhlmann
Part I. Theory: 2. Pynchon after paranoia Ali Chetwynd
3. Pynchon and new materialism Martin Paul Eve
4. Pynchon's posthuman temporalities Pieter Vermeulen
5. Pynchon, gender, and relational ethics Joanna Freer
Part II. Politics: 6. 'You are here': the postrace aesthetics of Pynchon's Against the Day Sue J. Kim
7. Another apocalypse: digital ecologies and late Pynchon Christopher K. Coffman
8. Pynchon and new political activisms Michael O'Bryan
9. Threat and crisis in twenty-first century Pynchon Hanjo Berressem
10. Digital readings Katie Muth
Part III. Analysis: 11. Reading Pynchon in and on the digital age Luc Herman
12. Pynchon on film Ralph Clare
13. Pynchon's twenty-first century paratexts Tore Rye Andersen
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Modern & contemporary fiction [post c 1945 FA], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literature & literary studies [D]