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Theoreticians of postmodernism
Loytard
Baudrillard
Jameson
Huyssens
McHale
Hutcheon
Umberto Eco on postmodernism
Quote: man who declares love to woman saying “as … would put it, I love you madly”
modernism: innocence
postmodernism: age of lost innocence, everything has already been said, no need to stop speaking, just to be aware
treat it with irony and playfulness, not dead seriousness or feigned innocence
Postmodernism is dead (according to McHale)
1989: with the death of Samuel Beckett
Federman: Postmodernism died because Godot never came
Federman
1989: death of samuel beckett and postmodernism
postmodernism died because godot never came
Postmodernism
The dominant cultural tendency during the second half of the 20th century in the advanced industrial societies of the west
Postmodernism vs postmodernity
Postmodernism
cultural tendency
aesthetic principle
Postmodernity
sociocultural state, condition of society
historical period
from 1945 onwards
Modernity vs postmodernity
Modernity
enlightenment - end of WWII
technological progress
rational thought
emancipating the human being
a better world?
Postmodernity
loss of innocence
humans only make the world worse
new way of thinking
mass media
governed by eclectisism (internationalisation)
Turning point between the two: holocaust, WWIIPo
Modernist vs postmodernist architecture
Modernist
international style
universal grammar, functional above all else
steel, concrete, glass
function determines form
house as machine for living
no ornamentation
critique: lach of attention for the individual, leads to conformity
Postmodernist
multiplicity of references
mix of styles and excess: overkill
more true to life than austere modernism
influence of pop art
Modernism vs postmodernism in visual arts
Modernism
van Gogh, Much
Depth, inviting a meaning
possibility of interpretation
transformation of reality and the viewer
unique style
artist produces art in order to express something
Postmodernism
Warhol
Depthless, mere surface, mere fetishes
no interpretation possible or necessary
no transformation of reality, mere play
not unique
no expression, only technological reproduction => dull
From modernism to postmodernism
After modernism or more modernism?
John Frow: postmodernism as a continuation of modernism
modernism: make it new
innovation => obsolescence
modernism is obsolete and thus postmodernism is born
John Frow
Postmodernism as a continuation of modernism
modernism: make it new
innovation => obsolescence
modernism becomes obsolete, postmodernism is born
Continuity between modernism and postmodernism
Most of the literary strategies, but in a different way
Rupture between modernism and postmodernism
Modernism
Art is educational and emancipatory
Art is redemptive
Art can compensate for chaos and fragmentation
Postmodernism
it is not
it is not
it cannot
Threshold between modernism and postmodernism
WWII and the holocaust
modernism: celebration of reason and ratio
but: Holocaust was the ultimate display of rational behaviour
Difference between first and second half of 20th century (McHale)
Conventional warfare => international terrorism
Nuclear
Decolonisation and mass migration to europe, end of old empires
Globalisation
New gender roles
more uncertainty, instability, anxiety, disillusionment
Place of literature in modernism and postmodernism
Modernism
had a function
central to public debate
moral and ideological core of its time
Postmodernism
has no function
to entertain, commercial
has lost its value and relevance in society
Double-coding of postmodernist literature
Linda Hutcheon
The logic of “both…and…” instead of “either…or…”
self-reflexive and parodic, but also historical
Change of dominant from modernism to postmodernism
McHale: inherent changes to literature
Modernist novel
about interior experience and embodied consciousness
epistemological
postmodernist novel
about world-making and codes of being
ontological
difference is not absolute
Dominant
set of priorities in fiction
epistemological
knowledge-oriented
what do we know?
how do we know it?
what is unknowable?
is knowledge reliable?
ontological
being in certain historical context (exterior world = society at large)
which world is it?
what is to be done in it?
multiple worlds and multiple selves
Periodisation of postmodernism
McHale
1966 beginning
1960s the onset
1970-80s the peak
1990s the interregnum / late postmodernism
Reading backwards/in reverse
McHale
1) identify properties in mature postmodernism
2) trace them backwards to earlier texts
4 main theorists for postmodernism
Andreas Huyssens
Frederic Jameson
Jean Baudrillard
Jean-François Lyotard
Andreas Huyssen
“After the Great Divide” (1986)
The Great Divide = between mass culture and high art
modernism: great divide
postmodernism: no more great divide
problem
inclusion of pop culture => consumerism, commercialism, encouragement thereof
affirmation instead of criticism
Frederic Jameson
'“Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism” (1984)
postmodernism as a cultural dominant
Late capitalism
postindustrialism (not physical labour but services, main product is knowledge)
globalisation
modernity: a sense of alienation
Result
new flatness, superficiality, alienation
loss of historical consciousness
waning of affect
unique style replaced by pastiche
postmodern sublime
Waning of affect
Jameson
no emotion in art, linked to alleged loss of separate and unique individual identity
we are all consumers
Postmodern sublime
Jameson
Shock and awe, but no revelation
before: beyond beauty, powerfull, larger than life, leads to a revelation
Jean Baudrillard
“Simulacra and simulation” (1981)
visual and digital media => impossible to distinguist between real and false copies/images
Simulacrum
before: a representation of something else
now: the original has been lost
example: the gulf war did not happen
Jean-François Lyotard
“La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir” (1979)
new status of knowledge
effect of information-processing machines
knowledge = commodity, produced to be sold and consumed, loses it’s use-value
end of grand narratives
instead: petits récits / language games
postmodernism = an incredulity towards grand narratives
Grand narratives
Jean-François Lyotard
Grands récits
overarching theories and ideologies
Postmodernist features
no great divide between high and low culture
irony and playfulness instead of high seriousness
gestures of random historical citation: eclecticism
no emancipatory project anymore
depthlessness
pastiche instead of parody
loss of historical consciousness
reproduction: loss of the individual subject
simulacrum: loss of the real
end of grand narratives
language games
loss of things, focus on playfulness and not taking things too seriously, self-reflexive
Parody vs pastiche
Parody
= imitation to make fun of something with purpose
moral, aesthetic, educational
implicit criticism of what is being parodied
Pastiche
= pure imitation for imitation’s sake
not necessarily funny
often combination of different genres or styles
no implicit criticism
nod towards the past
Difference is subtle
not mutually exclusive