No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1339. Adviser: Paul John Eakin. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 22, 2007)."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1982. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [447]-462.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-232). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-239). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-194).

Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2009. / Thesis advisor: Burlin Barr. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English." Includes bibliographical references (leaves i-iv). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This thesis is an examination and reassessment of an early work on postmodernism written by the once prominent American critic, Bernard Iddings Bell, in 1926. Bell's work, Postmodernism, and other essays, provides us with one of the earliest documented uses of the term "postmodernism" in the English language. It also anticipates many of the pronouncements of later critics regarding the development of postmodernism in politics, philosophy, and literary criticism. Despite these facts however, or perhaps because of them, contemporary critics have continued to ignore Bell's work, charging that his thesis is "anti-modern" rather than "postmodern", and otherwise irrelevant to current debates on postmodernism. This thesis will challenge that interpretation. Here it will be argued that the decision to exclude Bell's work from current debates on postmodernism is based upon Bell's religious predilections. In addition to constituting a radical break with the knowledge systems of the past, Bell argues that postmodernism will also be accompanied by a large scale religious revival. This argument runs counter to the dominant critical consensus regarding the relationship between postmodernism and religion adopted by critics from Arnold J. Toynbee in the 1950s, to Fredric Jameson in the 1990s. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to analysis of the philosophical influences and historical background to Bell's essay with the aim of comparing and contrasting Bell's ideas with those found in more recent works on postmodernism. The second part examines the possible impact of Bell's thesis on the interpretation of contemporary American literature and literary theory. Rather than focusing on a "poetics of parody", or the theoretical implications of "irony and humour", as previous critics have done, we will focus here on how contemporary writers like John Updike, Don DeLillo, and Toni Morrison, have chosen to incorporate the themes of postmodern criticism with a critique of that criticism, especially where this touches on the subject of religion. We conclude that Bell's insistence that postmodernism will be defined by a renewed interest in religion and mystical theology still has merit in the realm of contemporary cultural debates. Postmodern criticism that attempts to exclude religion from this arena does so on the basis of a modern interpretation of religious evolution and secularization, and therefore runs the risk of reiterating an older modernist critique.