Quick, what is postmodernism?

[Verbal Mike]

What is it? Quick!

[LMNO]

What is it? Quick!

If one examines structural premodernist theory, one is faced with a choice: either accept textual rationalism or conclude that the task of the writer is deconstruction. Lacan uses the term 'structural premodernist theory' to denote the absurdity of neosemioticist truth. But the subject is interpolated into a that includes culture as a reality.

Hamburger[1] states that we have to choose between the dialectic paradigm of context and posttextual feminism. It could be said that an abundance of deconstructions concerning a constructivist paradox may be discovered.

Lyotard promotes the use of structural subpatriarchialist theory to deconstruct hierarchy. Therefore, the main theme of McElwaine's[2] critique of structural premodernist theory is the role of the poet as reader.

The premise of postcultural theory suggests that class, surprisingly, has significance. But the within/without distinction prevalent in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is also evident in Pulp Fiction, although in a more self-referential sense.

Baudrillard uses the term 'structural premodernist theory' to denote a subcultural totality. It could be said that the subject is contextualised into a that includes art as a whole.

[Verbal Mike]

Where'd you generate that one?
(srsly I need quick explanations of postmodernism )

[LMNO]

Is wikipedia not working for you?

[LMNO]

Postmodernism is a complicated term, or set of ideas, one that has only emerged as an area of academic study since the mid-1980s. Postmodernism is hard to define, because it is a concept that appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study, including art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, communications, fashion, and technology. It's hard to locate it temporally or historically, because it's not clear exactly when postmodernism begins.


Perhaps the easiest way to start thinking about postmodernism is by thinking about modernism, the movement from which postmodernism seems to grow or emerge. Modernism has two facets, or two modes of definition, both of which are relevant to understanding postmodernism.


The first facet or definition of modernism comes from the aesthetic movement broadly labeled "modernism." This movement is roughly coterminous with twentieth century Western ideas about art (though traces of it in emergent forms can be found in the nineteenth century as well). Modernism, as you probably know, is the movement in visual arts, music, literature, and drama which rejected the old Victorian standards of how art should be made, consumed, and what it should mean. In the period of "high modernism," from around 1910 to 1930, the major figures of modernism literature helped radically to redefine what poetry and fiction could be and do: figures like Woolf, Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka, and Rilke are considered the founders of twentieth-century modernism.


From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include:


1. an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing.


2. a movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner's multiply-narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism.


3. a blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary (as in T.S. Eliot or ee cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce).


4. an emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials.


5. a tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something constructed and consumed in particular ways.


6. a rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs (as in the poetry of William Carlos Williams) and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation.


7. A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.


Postmodernism, like modernism, follows most of these same ideas, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness. Postmodern art (and thought) favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subject.


But--while postmodernism seems very much like modernism in these ways, it differs from modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernism, for example, tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history (think of The Wasteland, for instance, or of Woolf's To the Lighthouse), but presents that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss. Many modernist works try to uphold the idea that works of art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning which has been lost in most of modern life; art will do what other human institutions fail to do. Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that. The world is meaningless? Let's not pretend that art can make meaning then, let's just play with nonsense.


http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html

[Verbal Mike]

The thing is, I have to give a very brief presentation on Postmodernism in my Literary Analysis class... I identify with Postmodernism myself but find it very difficult to explain, especially briefly. The Wikipedia article gives a lot of background and criticism but does a pretty crap job of explaining the essence of Postmodernism.
What I'm really looking for is a very rough, short description of the topic, that is easy to understand and get one's head around.

[LMNO]

The above wasn't wikipedia, it was some online Colorodo thing.

Cain might have a good summary, but it seems to me it's an umbrella term for a lot of late-20th century writers to break as many traditional rules as possible, and sees the absurdity (in the Camus sense) of life as revelatory rather than tragic.

[Verbal Mike]

I can always just babble incoherently and then claim the presentation was itself postmodernist.

[LMNO]

but it seems to me it's an umbrella term for a lot of late-20th century writers to break as many traditional rules as possible, and sees the absurdity (in the Camus sense) of life as revelatory rather than tragic.

[Verbal Mike]

Yes. Thanks.

[Manta Obscura]

What I'm really looking for is a very rough, short description of the topic, that is easy to understand and get one's head around.

Paraphrased from James Sire's book "The Universe Next Door," with additional commentary included reflecting the ideas of Sister Margaret McPeak, SC, Ph.D, from a lecture series on Postmodernity that I took in the Autumn of '07:

"Postmodernism is the conceptual framework of rejecting grand narratives as explanations and organizing structures for human creations, including works of art, science, societal norms, political ideologies, and all other forms of human social interaction. In contrast to the grand narrative idea of the modernist movement, postmodernism posits the idea that truths, values and workable models for human interaction are contextual, changing, and impermanent. The emphasis in postmodernism is upon how fractured social groups create working meanings from the tools and models that they use, and how through careful objectivity and the ideals of interdisciplinarity, differences between fractured systems of meaning may be bridged and coherent syntheses between worldviews may result."

[LMNO]

Great.  Now translate that into normal speak.

"Nothing is true; everything is permitted; perspective alters the narrative."

[Manta Obscura]

Great.  Now translate that into normal speak.

"Nothing is true; everything is permitted; perspective alters the narrative."

Exactly. I was just trying to give the egghead interpretation so that VERB could use it if necessary. The conceptual theorists and lit analysts are all about using the jargon.

A good metaphor that my Historical Philosophy prof said one time is as follows:

"A modernist would say that Manifest Destiny drove Americans westward. A postmodernist would say that Americans going westward manifested their destiny."

[Cain]

In philosophy, its a critical and normally somewhat nihilistic attempt to uncover hidden implicit assumptions within Western philosophical frameworks, then expose them, then write long books which sound like gibberish explaining it.

To really understand postmodern philosophy, you may want to look into Critical Theory first. 

Like most things, it has its applications, but someone (yes I'm looking at YOU Lacan) tries to take it too far.

[Cramulus]

I didn't understand postmodernism until I read up on modernism.

The moderns - people like Hegel - posited a world that had a narrative. And they thought that narrative was going somewhere. This is the line of thought that led to German nationalism - "Of course we're the chosen people - look at our story!"

After world war II, all that talk about history going in one direction sounded kind of facist.

POST MODERNISM was the rejection of any central narrative in favor of a more personal, pragmatic one.



as an example, I hold up Collage and the Cut-Up method as the perfect form of post-modern art.