Die Studie Writing (Against) Postmodernism: The Urban Experience in Contemporary North American Fiction- stützt sich auf drei Hauptthesen. Zunächst wird dargelegt, dass sich postmoderne theoretische Positionen hinsichtlich des Verlusts menschlicher Handlungsfähigkeit und der Unzuverlässigkeit der Sprache trotz ihrer Umstrittenheit dazu eignen, ein Zeitgeistphänomen der nordamerikanischen urbanen Mittel- und Oberklasse um die Jahrtausendwende zu beschreiben. Wie Writing (Against) Postmodernism zeigt, korrespondieren die Leben der Figuren in den untersuchten Romanen "- The Savage Girl- (Alex Shakar, 2001),- Look At Me- (Jennifer Egan, 2001),- Noise- (Russell Smith, 1998),- Glamorama- (Bret Easton Ellis, 1998),- Ditch (Hal Niedzviecki, 2001),- Manhattan Loverboy, and- Suicide Casanova- (Arthur Nersesian, 2000, 2002) " mit Ideen, wie sie von zeitgenössischen Theoretikern wie Frederic Jameson, Paul de Man, Jean Baudrillard oder Jacques Derrida vertreten oder hergeleitet werden. Die Studie nimmt zudem ausführlich zu theoretischen Debatten rund um die Postmoderne Stellung. Sie zeigt die argumentativen Unzulänglichkeiten postmoderner Positionen und ihrer Anwendungen auf und arbeitet Argumente für einen maßvollen Realismusbegriff sowie gegen die Tendenz heraus, "that extra edge of consciousness" (Raymond Williams), welches Menschen zum selbstbestimmten Handeln befähigt, allzu schnell zu verwerfen. In einem weiteren Schritt argumentiert die vorliegende Studie, dass die oben genannten Texte und ihre Figuren nicht nur Unzufriedenheit mit dem postmodernen Leben und dem postmodernen Text beschreiben, sondern dass sie einen Weg aus postmodernen Aporien andeuten, die anfangs als gegebene Realität erscheinen. In der Bewegung weg von postmodernen theoretischen Positionen und deren praktischen Konsequenzen können die Bücher als Reflex eines 'post-postmodernen' Diskurses in der kulturellen Produktion Nordamerikas gelesen werden.

As a target for condemnation, the thematic prevalence of racism in African American novels of satire is not surprising. In order to confront this vice in its shifting manifestations, however, the African American satirist has to employ special techniques. This thesis examines some of these devices as they occur in George Schuyler- Black No More, Charles Wright- The Wig, and Percival Everett- Erasure. Given the reciprocity of target and technique in the satiric context, close attention is paid to how the authors under study locate and interrogate racism in their narratives. In this respect, the significance of anti-essentialist Marxist criticism in Schuyler- Black No More and the author- portrayal of the society of his time as capitalist machinery is examined. While Schuyler is concerned with exposing the general socioeconomic workings of the 1920s from a Marxist perspective, Wright offers the reader perspective into how this oppressive machinery psychologically manipulates and corrupts the individual in the historic context of Lyndon B. Johnson- political vision of the Great Society. Everett then elaborates on the epistemological concern which is traceable in Wright- work and addresses the role media representation plays in manufacturing images and rigid categories that shape systematic racism. As such, the present study not only highlights the versatility of satire as a rhetorical secret weapon and thus ventures toward the idiosyncrasies of the African American novel of satire, it also makes an effort to trace the ever-changing face of racial discrimination.

My dissertation is concerned with contemporary (Anglo-)Canadian immigrant fiction and proposes an analytic grid with which it may be appreciated and compared more adequately. As a starting-point serves the general observation that the works of many Canadian immigrant writers are characterised by a focus on their respective home cultures as well as on their Canadian host culture. Following the ground-breaking work of Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood and David Staines, the categories of "there" and "here" are suggested in order to reflect this double encoding of Canadian immigrant literature. However, "here" and "there" are more than spatial configurations in that they represent a concern with issues of multiculturalism and postcolonialism. Both of which are informed by an emphasis on difference and identity, and difference and identity are also what the narratives of M.G. Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath and Rohinton Mistry are preoccupied with. My study sets out to show two things: On the one hand, it attempts to exemplify the complexity and interrelatedness of "there" and "here" in a representative fashion. Hence in their treatments of difference, M.G. Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath and Rohinton Mistry come up with comparable identity constructions "here" and "there" respectively. On the other hand, special attention is paid to the strategies by which Vassanji, Bissoondath and Mistry construct difference and corroborate their respective understandings of identity.