Abstract

Much has been made over the potentially dark and dangerous side of postmodernism — its antihumanism, its attack on basic assumptions about language and experience, its denial of selfhood. For Lance Olsen, however, there are points of convergence between postmodernism and the comic vision. Both the comic and the postmodern attempt to subvert all centers of authority — including their own. Both ultimately deride univocal visions. Through radical incongruity of form and vision, both seek to short-circuit the dominant culture's repressive impulses. After a lively introductory chapter that maps the confluence of postmodernism and the comic vision, Olsen focuses on seven British and American fiction writers, using their works to examine various aspects of the rise and fall of postmodern humor in our culture.