A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction

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Docherty, T. (1989). Review of Postmodernist Fiction by Brian McHale and What Fiction Means by Bent Nordhiem. The Review of English Studies, 160, 597–598.

May, Melanie A (1995), A Body Knows: A Theopoetics of Death and Resurrection, Continuum International Publishing, ISBN 0-8264-0849-4Cruz-Villalobos, Luis (2020). Poesía Teológica. Prólogo de John D. Caputo. 2da Ed. Santiago de Chile: Independently Poetry [6]

In October 2013, another American literary journal Narrative also published a special issue on “Postmodernist Fiction: East and West” with Wang Ning and Brian McHale, two postmodernist scholars with international fame, as its guest editors. The latest boom of publications of postmodernist scholarship containing eight articles by specialists in the study of postmodernist fictions, this special issue focuses on the narrative techniques of postmodern narrative in contemporary fiction “in an attempt to place postmodernist fiction in a historical and global context” (Wang 2013, p. 266). Although Wang Ning observes that “postmodern ideas and ways of thinking have permeated almost all the aspects of contemporary culture and are still influential in many humanities fields” (Wang 2013, p. 265), he admits, not unhesitatingly, that “it has receded into the historical past, albeit a past which is nevertheless still influential and significant to our literary and cultural studies” (Wang 2013, p. 265). Harpham, G. (1995). Ethics. In F. Lentricchia & T. McLaughlin (Eds.), Critical Terms for Literary Study (pp. 387–405). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cruz-Villalobos, Luis & Lagunas, Samuel (2020). Plegarias Sórdidas. Santiago de Chile: Independently Poetry. [7] Hutcheon, L. (1995). Once again, from the top: More pomo promo. Comparative Literature, 36, 164–172. McHale, B. (2007). What was postmodernism? Electronic Book Review. http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/fictionspresent/tense. Accessed 20 Jan 2014.

In the second school of theopoetics, the aim is drawn “from von Balthasar’s affirmation of poetic expression: when God speaks to us in the Incarnation, all qualities of human language—even being itself—are employed as created ‘grammar’ by which God expresses himself to us…With God at the center of expression, poetry becomes capable of an authentic role in theological language.” [8] Theopoetics in its modern context is an interdisciplinary field of study that combines elements of poetic analysis, process theology, narrative theology, and postmodern philosophy. Originally developed by Stanley Hopper and David Leroy Miller in the 1960s and furthered significantly by Amos Wilder with his 1976 text, Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination. One school values process theology and postmodern philosophy. It is led by individuals such as L. Callid Keefe-Perry, Rubem Alves, Catherine Keller, John Caputo, Peter Rollins, Scott Holland, Melanie May, Matt Guynn, Roland Faber, and others. [1] McHale, B. (1992b). Postmodernism, or the anxiety of master narratives. Review of A poetics of postmodernism: history, theory, fiction by Linda Hutcheon and Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism by Frederic Jameson. Diacritics, 22, 17–33.

This form of theo-poetics “requires the interplay of three massive fields of knowledge: metaphysics, language, and Christology” [9]and is to be “sharply distinguished from the agnostic overtures of the ‘theo-poetics’ movement, whose lineage is not be found in the thought of Balthasar.” [8] van Alphen, E. (1989). The heterotopian space of the discussions on postmodernism. Poetics Today, 10, 819–839.Wilder, Amos Niven (1976), Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination, Philadelphia: Fortress, ISBN 0-7880-9908-6 .

The mythopoetics of the Oxford Inklings (C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, among others) would also be an example of classical theopoetics. Charles Williams gave the name "Romantic Theology" to his project of establishing a subclass of theology at the intersection of imaginative literature and classical theology. Others have called it Christian Romanticism, Mythopoetics or Theopoetics. Northwind Seminary offers a doctoral degree program in the Romantic Theology of the Oxford Inklings. [www.NorthwindSeminary.edu] Harrity, Dave (2013), Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity, and the Kingdom at Hand, Seedbed, ISBN 1628240229 Hopper, Stanley Romaine; Keiser, R Melvin (1992), Stoneburner, Tony (ed.), The Way of Transfiguration: Religious Imagination As Theopoiesis, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 0-664-21936-5 . Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge (Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Bronsink, Troy (2013), Drawn In: A Creative Process For Artists, Activists, and Jesus Followers, Paraclete, ISBN 1557258716 McHale, B. (2011). Break, period, interregnum. Twentieth-Century Literature, 57, Fall/Winter, 328–340.