In 1983, McCaffery published two books in the field of postmodern literary studies. The first wasThe 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 wasAnything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists (withTom LeClair), which helped identify the major innovative authors associated withpostmodernism.[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] andSome 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" criticLance 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,Fiction International move to SDSU fromNew York City, where it had been edited and published byJoe David Bellamy since 1973.[10] McCaffery served as co-editor ofFI with Harold Jaffe for the next decade, during which it became one of the leading publishers of radically innovative, politically charged fiction.[10] Since the early eighties, he has also been an editor ofAmerican Book Review, and executive editor ofCritique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. McCaffery has guest-edited several special issues of other literary magazines, includingMississippi Review's landmark "Cyberpunk Issue".[11][12]
He created a theory of media/visual studies about the relation between memory, narrative, and sexuality called "Avant-Porn," as claimed in his introduction toMichael Hemmingson's 2000 anthology,WTF: The Avant-Porn Anthology.[22] a true account.[23]
^See McCaffery's chapter "The Fictions of the Present."The Columbia Literary History of the United States, ed. Emory Eliiott. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988, pp. 116–77. (ISBN978-0-231-05812-4)
^The Metafictional Muse: The Work of Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme and William H. Gass. Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1982. (ISBN978-0-8229-3462-2)
^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.
^"Dust Devil" (critifictional introduction) In Michael Hemmingson, ed.,What the Fuck: The Avant-Porn Anthology. NY: Soft Skull Press, 2001, pp. i–xi. (ISBN978-1-887128-61-2)
