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Postmodernism's ‘end'is a complex and contentious topic. Yet, one overarching consensus emerges: the postmodern has been surpassed. This book poses a thought experiment challenging this position – what if postmodernism persists within the twenty-first century?Rather than designate a new epoch or coherent movement, this book interrogates the fragmented, contradictory, and counterintuitive endurance of postmodern aesthetics within post-Cold War America. An alternative use of postmodern aesthetics becomes possible when they are decoupled from their twentieth-century historical location. Collectively, these repetitions posit a postmodern continuum, contrasting the widely called-for succession of postmodernism via this decoupling. When postmodern aesthetics are no longer unconsciously repeated within their cultural moment, this emergent shift within a period ‘after'postmodernism presents an alternative historical positioning and use. After their cultural vanguard, postmodern aesthetics become a confrontation of the chaotic realism of an inescapable post-Cold War capitalism, tapping into this cultural zeitgeist through literature.

Winner of the 2016 ESSE Junior Scholar Book Award in Literatures in the English LanguageThe Literature of Reconstruction argues for the term and concept of'postmillennial reconstruction'to fill the gap left by the decline of postmodernism and deconstruction as useful cultural and literary categories. Wolfgang Funk shows how this notion emerges from the theoretical and philosophical development that led to the demise of postmodernism by relating it to the idea of'authenticity': immediate experience that eludes direct representation. In addition, he provides a clear formal framework with which to identify and classify the features of'reconstructive literature'by updating the narratological category of'metafiction', originally established in the 1980s. Based on Werner Wolf's observation of a'metareferential turn'in contemporary arts and media, he illustrates how the specific use of metareference results in a renegotiation of the specific patterns of literary communication and claims that this renegotiation can be profitably described with the concept of'reconstruction'.To substantiate this claim, in the second half of the book Funk discusses narrative texts that illustrate this transition from postmodern deconstruction to postmillennial reconstruction. The analyses take in distinguished and prize-winning writers such as Dave Eggers, Julian Barnes, Jennifer Egan and Jasper Fforde. The broad scope of authors, featuring writers from the US as well as the UK, underlines the fact that the reconstructive tendencies and strategies Funk diagnoses are of universal significance for the intellectual and cultural self-image of the global North.

Often dismissed as sensationalist, transgressive fiction is a sophisticated movement with roots in Menippean satire and the Rabelaisian carnal folk sensibility praised by Bakhtin. This study, the first of its kind, provides a thorough literary background and analysis of key transgressive authors such as Acker, Amis, Carter, Ellis, and Palahniuk.