绪论 1
Chapter One Introduction 9
1.1 The Postmodern Challenge to Historiography 9
1.2 Historiographic Metafiction： A Postmodern Genre 21
1.3 A Working Definition of “Political Engagement” in Literature 28
1.4 Literature Review 33
Chapter Two Historiographic Metafiction： Reuniting the Aesthetic with the Political 48
2.1 Historiographic Metafiction versus Metafiction 50
2.2 Historiographic Metafiction， the Historical Novel， and the Non-fictional Novel 55
2.3 The Paradoxes of Historiographic Metafiction 61
2.3.1 Historicity and Discursiveness 61
2.3.2 Referentiality and Metafictionality 63
2.4 Reuniting the Aesthetic with the Political 66
2.4.1 The Apolitical Stance of High Modernism and New Avant-Garde 66
2.4.2 From Political Apathy to Political Engagement： Change of Dominant 72
Chapter Three E.L.Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel：Putting America on Trial 85
3.1 Daniel Writing His Own Book as the Heir of the “Atomic Spies” 89
3.2 Traumatizing the Survivals and Putting America on Trial 98
3.3 From the Old Left Communists to the New Left Students 111
Chapter Four Robert Coover’s The Public Burning： Staging the Miscarriage of Justice 120
4.1 Nixon Recounting His Independent Investigation of the Rosenberg Case 123
4.2 Creating a Carnival of Shame and Staging the Miscarriage of Justice 134
4.3 From Cold War Paranoia to the Watergate Scandal 145
Chapter Five Don DeLillo’s Libra： Refuting the “Official Truth” 152
5.1 Nicholas Branch Composing His Secret History of the Assassination 155
5.2 Refuting the Official Narrative and Revealing the Alternative Truth 164
5.3 From the Kennedy Assassination to the Iran-Contra Affair 174
Chapter Six Conclusion 180
Works Cited 190
Appendices 202
Appendix Ⅰ：Dwelling in the Ambiguity of History： An Interview with E.L.Doctorow 202
Appendix Ⅱ：Getting inside the Stories： An Interview with Robert Coover 222
Appendix Ⅲ：Keeping Fiction Alive： An Interview with Don DeLillo 251