Larry McCaffery
Lawrence F. McCaffery Jr. (born May 13, 1946) is an American
Early life and education
McCaffery was born in 1946 in
Career
Academic career
He joined the Department of English and Comparative Literature at
Literary career
In 1983, McCaffery published two books in the field of postmodern literary studies. The first was The Metafictional Muse: The Works of Coover, Gass, and Barthelme, which explored the emergence of the "meta-impulse" as one of the defining features of postmodern aesthetics.[4] The second was Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists (with Tom LeClair), which helped identify the major innovative authors associated with postmodernism.[5]
McCaffery went on to publish three additional collections of interviews with contemporary authors: Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s with Sinda Gregory (1986),[6] Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Authors (1990),[7] and Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors (1995).[8] McCaffery explains that the interviews within these works begin orally, and, after being transcribed from tape and edited by both McCaffery and the interviewee, become "collaborative texts based on an actual conversation rather than a direct rendering of that conversation".[8] These works established "avant-prof" critic Lance Olsen to dub McCaffery as "Guru of the Interview"[9]
During his career as Professor at SDSU, McCaffery played a large role as editor of literary journals. In 1983, McCaffery arranged to have the literary journal,
His work
Awards and honors
- Judge, Electronic Literature Organization's Fiction Contest, May 2001.[16]
- Guest-of-Honor, Death Equinox Conference, Denver, September 1999.
- Guest-of-Honor, Readercon, Boston, April 1996.[17]
- Pioneer Award from Science Fiction Research Association, 1994.[18]
- National Endowment for the Humanities Research Award, Tokyo, Summer 1992. Title of Project: "Japanese and American Postmodernist Interactions"
- Guest-of-Honor at Volgacon 91: A Conference of Cyberpunk and Recent Soviet Science Fiction, Volgogrand, Russia, September 1991.[3]
- Meritorious Performance and Professional Promise Award, San Diego State University, 1986, 1988, 1990.[3]
- Pushcart Prize Nominee for Non-Fiction
- Selected as Fulbright Lecturer to P.R. China, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 1988–1990.
- Fiction Judge, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 1986.
- Outstanding Young Men of America Award, 1980.
References in pop culture and legacy
McCaffery is briefly mentioned in Raymond Federman's novel The Twofold Vibration,[19] and is mentioned throughout William T. Vollmann's book Imperial.[20] He has also been quoted in an article in The New Yorker about David Foster Wallace's legacy.[21]
He created a theory of media/visual studies about the relation between memory, narrative, and sexuality called "Avant-Porn," as claimed in his introduction to Michael Hemmingson's 2000 anthology, WTF: The Avant-Porn Anthology.[22] a true account.[23]
McCaffery is also author of the popular best of list The
Selected bibliography
Books of interviews
- Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors (1995)
- Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Authors (1990)
- Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s with Sinda Gregory (1987)
- Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists with Tom LeClair (1983)
Scholarly books
- The Metafictional Muse: The Work of Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme and William H. Gass (1982)
- Postmodern Fiction: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide Editor (1985)
- The Vineland Papers: Critical Takes on Pynchon's Novel with co-editors Geoffrey Green and Donald Greiner (1994)
- Federman: From A to X-X-X-X - A Recyclopedic Narrative with co-editors Thomas Hartl, and Doug Rice (1998)
- Avant-Crit: On Contemporary Literature and Culture (2024)
Fiction anthologies
- After Yesterday's Crash: The Avant-Pop Anthology. NY: ISBN 978-0-14-024085-6)
- ISBN 978-0-932511-72-0)
- ISBN 978-0-8223-1168-3)
- Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader with co-editor Michael Hemmingson (2004)
See also
References
- ^ McCaffery on Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium ("GLORY DAYS: A BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SYMPOSIUM - Admin". Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2011-02-25.)
- ISBN 978-0-231-05812-4)
- ^ a b c "January 2000".
- ISBN 978-0-8229-3462-2)
- ISBN 978-0-252-00971-6)
- ISBN 978-0-252-01385-0)
- ISBN 978-0-252-06140-0)
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8122-3201-1)
- ^ "Guru of the Interview": Lance Olsen reviews Across the Wounded Galaxies In American Book Review August/September 1990, p. 1 (http://americanbookreview.org/issueContent.asp?id=97)
- ^ a b "Fiction International". Archived from the original on 2008-07-24.
- ^ Mississippi Review: The Cyberpunk Controversy. #47/48. 1988. Including general introduction, "The Desert of the Real: The Cyberpunk Controversy."
- ^ Cyberpunk Timeline (http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/timeline.html)
- ^ Joseph Dudley review from Science Fiction Studies 1992.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-1168-3)
- ISBN 978-0-14-024085-6)
- ^ "Electronic Literature Organization".
- ^ "Readercon: Guests". Archived from the original on 2006-07-15.
- ^ for essay "Towards the Theoretical Frontiers of 'Fiction:' From Metafiction and Cyberpunk through Avant-Pop" (with Takayuki Tatsumi), SF Eye. 12 (Summer 1993):43-50.
- ISBN 978-1-892295-29-3)
- ISBN 978-0-670-02061-4)
- ^ "David Foster Wallace's Struggle to Surpass "Infinite Jest"". The New Yorker. March 2009.
- ^ see http://spinelessbooks.com/mccaffery/dustdevil/index.html
- ISBN 978-1-887128-61-2)
- ^ American Book Review, September/October 1999, Volume 20, Issue 6. (http://www.litline.org/abr/issues/volume20/issue6/abr100.html)
- ^ McCaffery's 100 and explanation at Spineless Books (http://www.spinelessbooks.com/mccaffery/100/index.html)
External links
- Interview with McCaffery by Alexander Laurence
- The 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English Language Books of Fiction, list by Larry McCaffery at ABR
- Dust Devil by Larry McCaffery
- The Unfinished by D.T. Max
- Interview excerpt from CyberPsychos AOD