Assess students' ability to analyze how unreliable narration, temporal fragmentation, and conspiracy operate as interrelated narrative strategies in late 20th‑century American postmodern novels; expectations include defining each strategy within narratological and postmodern theory, performing close readings of representative passages (e.g., Pynchon, DeLillo, Barthelme), comparing authorial techniques, and evaluating effects on epistemology, historiography, reader positioning, and political critique through short analytical tasks and comparative essays.