Postmodernism notes

Postmodernism

v  Generally a world view/theory.
    “A style and concept in the arts characterised by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions.”

Modernism – another theory or world view.
Postmodernism is the reaction against modernism in all disciplines – art, philosophy, film, literature, history etc.

Ø  Both modernism and postmodernism still currently exist.

Ø   Modernist and postmodernist texts have shared conceptions. They challenge typical conventional structures.

Ø  To tell the difference between the two is intent – analyse what the authors intended to do.

Ø  Modernist – critical, deconstructs, makes fun of
Postmodernist – take things from the past, turn things around, nostalgic

§  Pessimistic postmodernism – think that everything is already done

§  Optimistic postmodernism – think that there could be something new done by combining things together

Ø  It is self-contradictory (contradicts with itself) and ironic (it knows that it contradicts itself).

Ø  Postmodernity is suspicious of meta-narratives (e.g. Capitalism, Marxism, Feminism, God etc.) –it is self-contradictory because they say that there can’t be theories for everything when it is a theory itself. It offers a meta-narrative that there are no meta-narratives.

Conventions of postmodernism

v  Irony

v  Playing with conventions

v  Black humour – asks and raises questions but have few answers – it is criticised for being offensive, racist etc. –gone too far.

v  Intertextuality

v  Pastiche – past together/comment (from past)

v  Magic realism

v  Different perspectives