{"product_id":"9780814211144","title":"Five Strands of Fictionality: The Institutional Construction of Contemporary American Fiction","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn Five Strands of Fictionality: The Institutional Construction of Contemporary American Fiction, Daniel Punday examines the \"postmodern\" expansion of fictionality-the feeling today that the line between the real and the invented is harder to draw-and argues that this feeling reflects a struggle by different cultural groups to define how we tell and use \"literary\" stories. He discusses the literary texts of John Barth, Alice Walker, and Ishmael Reed; paraliterary forms like science fiction and electronic writing; and resolutely nonliterary texts, especially role-playing games, in terms of how each responds to the institution of literature through its definition of fictionality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor too long, postmodernism has been described by easy generalizations-relativist, indeterminate, commercialized-that have rendered the term nearly worthless. Punday applies a more nuanced understanding of fictionality to a variety of contemporary narrative forms that occupy different locations within postmodern literary culture. Approaching postmodernism as a configuration of institutions that legitimize fictionality, he illuminates the nature of creative writing and the conflicts between different literary groups in America today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ohio State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47016669610224,"sku":"9780814211144","price":44.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780814211144_p0.jpg?v=1763746862","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780814211144","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}