Postmodernism

FL 200

On Thursday we will be discussing chapter 4 of Barry's book on Literary Theory. That is, we will be talking about postmodernism. Names such as Jürgen Habermas, François Lyotard, and Jean Baudrillard are on the agenda.

Postmodernism is the name of a category and postmodernity is the label applied to the times we currently live in. These names would seem to indicate that we have broken with modernity, yet nothing could be less accurate. Culture works on a principle of accretion. If we are still fairly medieval about a number of things, married to many Renaissance notions, baroque at times, solid defenders of rationalism and other enlightened positions, romantics to the core, etc., it is no less the case that modernism is very much with us today and within postmodernism. Aesthetic currents such as Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism are still in some form alive today. "In some form" is the operational term here.

In a nutshell, the relationship between modernism and postmodernism is akin to that between our attitudes towards love at different points in our life. Thus, after having had one's heart broken by the first time our take on love resembles modernism. Yet, after very many sad, happy, joyful, and deep relationships with many wonderful lovers we tend to be closer to postmodernism. There is no drama in postmodernism and no regrets. Playfulness is central. A gentle irony pervades it all. There is no "romance of my life", as Dorian would have put it, and that is just perfectly fine. Being together with someone has ceased to be about great verities such as LOVE, MARRIAGE, FAMILY, etc. and has become self-referential: relationships are all about themselves. Etc.

Below you will find some basic principles, courtesy of Professor Mary Anne Gillies. Also do make sure to study Professor's Klages handout on postmodernism available here and in Moodle. It will make Barry's short chapter much more meaningful.

POSTMODERNISM: Label given to Cultural forms since the 1960s that display the following qualities:

• Self reflexivity: this involves the seemingly paradoxical combination of self-consciousness and some sort of historical grounding
• Irony: Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression, but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony
• Boundaries: Post modernism challenges the boundaries between genres, art forms, theory and art, high art and the mass media
• Constructs: Post modernism is actively involved in examining the constructs society creates including, but not exclusively, the following:

Nation: Post modernism examines the construction of nations/nationality and questions such constructions

Gender: Post modernism reassesses gender, the construction of gender, and the role of gender in cultural formations

Race: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of race

Sexuality: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of sexuality