American Studies Commons^™

The End Of Postmodernism, Ralph Clare

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

Appearing at the start of the millennium, Percival Everett's Erasure (2001) features Monk Ellison, a writer who is questioning his one-time embrace of postmodern aesthetics and who raises the ire of "innovative" writer and fellow member of the Nouveau Roman Society after delivering a conference paper, F/V, part parody of and part homage to Roland Barthes's S/Z. Becoming belligerent, the writer proclaims to Ellison that postmodernists did not "have time to finish what we set out to accomplish" because any art which "opposes or rejects established systems of creation ... has to remain unfinished." His unsuccessful attempt to …