POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM
•Problems with defining the term
•problem to distinguish it from modernism
•a radical break from modernism
•

•Beginning: the 1960s, with the rise of postmodern architecture
•Beginning: WWII
•End: the turn of millenium/ the fall of the twin towers. Today: post-postmodern time.
•No end yet: we still live in a postmodern age

Ihab Hassan: The Dismemberment of Orpheus (1998)
Modernism vs Postmodernism
Modernism
Postmodernism
purpose
play
design
chance
hierarchy
anarchy
finished work
process
presence
absence
depth
surface
signified
signifier

Postmodern features
•1) extreme self-reflexivity
•    making reference to its own artificiality
Masterpiece
Roy Lichtenstein: Masterpiece (1962)

•2) irony and parody
•    the tendency of postmodern artists, theorists, and culture to be playful or parodic
•    http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/has
•
•
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

•3) a breakdown between high and low cultural forms
•    Postmodernists often employ pop and mass-produced objects in understandable ways, even if
their goals are still often complex
Warhol-campbellsoup Andy%20Warhol,%20%20Marilyn
Andy Warhol's commentary on mass production

•4) a questioning of grand narratives
•    Questioning such traditional concepts as law, religion, subjectivity, nationhood
Madonna videos questioning traditional Christianity ("Like a Prayer"), gender divisions ("What It
Feels like for a Girl")
Queen
(I want to break free)
I want to break free from your lies
You're so self satisfied I don't need you
I've want to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free
….
It's strange but it's true
I can't get over the way you love me like you do
But I have to be sure
When I walk out that door
Oh how I want to be free, baby
Oh how I want to break free

•6) visuality and the simulacrum
•    predominance of visual media (tv, film, media advertising, the computer), the line separating
reality and representation has broken down
•
•films:
•Blade Runner
•Matrix
•Total Recall

postmodern authors
•Vladimir Nabokov
•John Barth
•Donald Barthelme
•Kurt Vonnegut
•Thomas Pynchon
•E. L. Doctorow
•Kathy Acker
•Ursula Le Guin
•Paul Auster
•Don DeLillo