Includes bibliographical references (p. 285-306) and index.

Architectural modernism: Le Corbusier -- Literary modernism - - Modernism versus popular literature -- The Frankfurt school versus Walter Benjamin -- Flowering of an orthodoxy -- Myths of origin: 1970s screen theory and literary history -- Architectural postmodernism: learning from Las Vegas -- From Las Vegas to Sydney -- Are we living in a postmodern age? -- Mapping Frederic Jameson's grand narrative -- From structuralism to poststructuralism -- Cultural studies: transitional moments from modernism to postmodernism -- Bakhtin's carnival -- Dilemmas of world upside down --

Fools: carnival-theatre-vaudeville-television -- Fool, trickster, social explorer: the detective -- Crime fiction as changing genre -- Melodrama, farce, soap opera -- Melodrama in action: prisoner, or cell block H (with Ann Curthoys).