Source #1 - Postmodernist Essays & Fiction

Postmod Essays & Fiction

This post is due Monday, 5 May 2025. Select one essay or short story for your response.

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To Post:

Use your digital alias to post in the comments at the bottom of this page.

Identify which essay or short story you intend to write about. Comment on one or more of the Postmodernist Elements listed below in Evidence & Commentary.

Include:

1. An INTRODUCTION that names the text & Postmodern elements, and includes a summary of the essay or story.

2. EVIDENCE & COMMENTARY about two examples of POSTMODERN elements, like

   1. Magical Realism,

   2. Historiographic Metafiction,

   3. Pastiche, and

   4. Anti-Convention Paradox & Black Humor.

(But anything works! Go nuts!) Explain how your evidence fits the definition and fits the literary tradition. Then, explain why it is significant in the text.

1. YOUR REACTIONS & OTHER WORKS this reminds you of, and how they compare/contrast. Two or three examples is ideal Share what resonates with you, what shocks you, what you have questions about, what you think its purpose is, etc. Apply the messages or ideas to your own experience with personal anecdotes (not too detailed...privacy).

2. DIGITAL GOODIES to include in your reactions...

3. Hyperlinked Titles & Images

4. Embedded Videos

5. Headings/Subheadings

6. GIFs/Images

You'll use your responses to these works and other Nerdy comments in the FORUM for your Final Exam.

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Option A (9 points) Carlos Greaves' "Sure, the Velociraptors are Still on the Loose, but That's No Reason NOT to Reopen Jurassic Park"

Option B (10 points) Jonathan Haidt's "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life have been Uniquely Stupid"

Option C (6 Points) Andy Borowitz's "Musk Deletes Every Twitter Account but His"

Option D (6 Points) Jessica Bylander's "I Love You More Than Anything, but I would Rather Die than Talk to You on the Phone"

Talking v. Texting

Option E (8 Points) Elissa Bassist's "Writer Math"

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Option F (6 Points) Becky Robinson's "Baby Dolls"

Option G (10 Points) Ry Book Suraski's "Decortication of an Airplane"

Option H (8 Points) Alyssa Proujansky's "Sink Monkey"

Option 👁 (7 Points) Eric Howerton's "Polyphemus on His Days Off"

Option J (9 Points) Tatyana Tolstaya's Unnecessary Things

Option K (6 Points) Mia Couto's "War of the Clowns"

Option L (8 Points) Kate Crosby's "Inside Where You Belong"

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Here's a model comment from Ima Nerd. This one's about a famous Postmodernist essay, "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words." This essay isn't one of your choices, but it's a fun (and short!) read if you're interested!

IMA NERD 8th pd

COMMENT #1 - POSTMODERNIST ESSAY

**MODEL RESPONSE**

Paul Henry Roberts, "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words"

"How to Say Nothing in 500 Words" is an essay from the 1950's, so it's like a thousand years ago to you. But, it has lots of funny and *real* advice about cranking out good essays, even if you think the essay topics are boring.

Here's the link: "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words"

Take a look at how he begins - you'll get a kick out of all the old-fashioned language and stone-age technology. Like a typewriter - a portable typewriter! I think that was like a smartphone for college students back then. Even though it may not have been the professor's intent, it feels magically anachronistic now. Thus, as a Postmodernist reader, I deem it Magical. See if the situation, if not the setting, sounds familiar:

The bulk of his essay is a "student" attempting to BS his way through a 500 word college essay with the least amount of effort and the most amount of filler. The student is shocked. SHOCKED! that he earns a D on the essay. How dare the teacher undervalue his brilliance!

The professor follows this with the student's internal monologue as he fills in the body paragraphs with "in my opinions" and "it is my belief thats," but what really kills the essay is the student's trite thinking. He only covers what everyone else would think of first if they agree that football is harmful or disagree that football is harmful. The OWL at Purdue suggests you "talk to your audience" and "search for a fresh analogy that opens up new ideas" rather than fall into the common knowledge trap.

Roberts gives us advice by providing this poor, aggrieved young man with a list. It’s Postmodernist fragmentation & pastiche in the form of a How-to. I like to think of it as a professor's precursor to the modern Buzzfeed listicle. That is, it's advice for student writers, written with a heavy dose of Postmodernist humor, taking a baseball bat to the fourth wall and rebuilding it into a tower of snark and silliness.

1. AVOID THE OBVIOUS CONTENT (Everything is an argument, so make yours using reasons that are compelling. If the topic is therapy animals, make your essay about the benefits of therapy tarantulas.)

2. TAKE THE LESS USUAL SIDE (Yes, dogs can be therapeutic, but I suspect they are megalomaniacs, clandestinely plotting to destroy us and take our snausage supply.)

3. SLIP OUT OF ABSTRACTION (i.e. 🤢 "It shows the reader what the character is really thinking," or "The speaker uses this to give meaning to the story." Hrrrghh! 🤮 Do not do this!)

4. GET RID OF OBVIOUS PADDING ("It is my opinion that I think I believe and many people agree that the sky, also known as the stuff you see when you look up, or so I've heard, is blue.")

5. CALL A FOOL A FOOL (NO: "The woman's mental health was greatly improved." YES: "Her therapy tarantula, tickling up her neck and whispering jokes in her ear (and possibly laying eggs) made the woman happy." IOW: be direct, no passive-weenie voice)

6. BEWARE OF PAT EXPRESSIONS (aka the Thought Sausage)

7. COLORED WORDS (like, saying "OK, Boomer" to your Grandpa or "Whatever, Karen" to your aunt who is NOT named Karen)

8. COLORLESS WORDS (aka No-No Words - aspects, many different things, instances, eventualities, etc.)

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But, I think his best advice is this: "Well, you may ask, what can you do about it? The subject is one on which you have few convictions and little information. Can you be expected to make a dull subject interesting? As a matter of fact, this is precisely what you are expected to do. This is the writer's essential task. All subjects, except sex, are dull until somebody makes them interesting. The writer's job is to find the argument, the approach, the angle, the wording that will take the reader with him. This is seldom easy, and it is particularly hard in subjects that have been much discussed."

This is an entire series on fiction writing called, ironically, Terrible Writing Advice, but lots of their rules are the same as Roberts'. These are really funny. Check out Terrible Writing Advice's segment, "Grimdark."