ABSTRACT

Collage in Twenty-First-Century Literature in English: Art of Crisis considers the phenomenon of the continued relevance of collage, a form established over a hundred years ago, to contemporary literature. It argues that collage is a perfect artistic vehicle to represent the crisis-ridden reality of the twenty-first-century. Being a mixture of fragmentary incompatible voices, collage embodies the chaos of the media-dominated world. Examining the artistic, sociopolitical and personal crises addressed in contemporary collage literature, the book argues that the 21st Century has brought a revival of collage-like novels and essays.

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

Madly in Love With Crisis: Collage Literature Today

chapter 1|35 pages

Theory and Practice of Collage

part I|51 pages

Art in Crisis

chapter 2|26 pages

“Why Is Author So Damnably Tired?”

David Markson’s Late Novels

chapter 3|23 pages

Manifestos for “Reality-Based” Art

David Shields’s Reality Hunger and How Literature Saved My Life

part II|59 pages

Society in Crisis

chapter 4|32 pages

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

Lance Olsen’s Sewing Shut My Eyes, Head in Flames and Dreamlives of Debris

chapter 5|25 pages

When We Were Human

Steve Tomasula’s VAS: An Opera in Flatland and The Book of Portraiture

part III|48 pages

The Self in Crisis

chapter 6|24 pages

I’m Every Wo/man, Guaranteed One Hundred Per Cent Genuine!

Graham Rawle’s Woman’s World

chapter 7|22 pages

Diaries of Bad Years

Maggie Nelson’s Bluets and Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation

chapter |7 pages

Conclusion

Collage Is Here to Stay