ABSTRACT
In a number of essays published between 1988 and 1993, David Foster Wallace presented a vision of contemporary American fiction that broke in some important regards from then-typical definitions of postmodernist writing. While it is possible that 'metamodernism' may win the day as a label for the best next thing after postmodernism, questions regarding the post-postmodern turn's nature and implications are hardly resolved. American fiction awoke to opportunities allowed by hypertext upon the release of Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story, but, as Astrid Ensslin has argued, the 1990s saw the development of digital technologies that motivated more advanced hyperfictional practice. A notable consequence of the globalising of American literature and American studies has been the proliferation of, and the greater space afforded to, writing by women. Moraru points to Underworld as marking a shift from DeLillo’s earlier exemplary postmodernist fictions in its engagement with global realities.
