Brief
Notes on Post Modernism
- There is no such thing as
postmodernism but postmodernism exists discursively, i.e.
in the discourses we produce it and using it. The term
cannot be defined precisely.
- The term is used in music,
art, fiction, film, drama, photography, architecture,
literary theory and criticism, philosophy, anthropology,
sociology and geography.
- Originated in the 1960s,
taken up by theorists in the late 1970s, and popularized
in the 1980s.
- The use of the postmodernism
in contrast to modernism, i.e. periodisation
- There is argument against
the use of postmodernism is this sense as ¡§modern¡¨ is an ongoing process.
- If we take the concept of
post-industrialization versus industrialization,
postmodernism is for post-industrial society and
modernism is for industrialization.
- If we take modernism as
representation of early capitalism, postmodernism is the
representation of late capitalism.
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Some Features
of Postmodernism
- Distrust metanarratives,
i.e. asserting that there is no unifying knowledge/truth.
- Arts, morality and science
become autonomous, fragmentation versus totality.
- Anti-authority: the power
rests in authority (power, culture, academia, etc.)
should be de-established. The use of naming in
de-establishing authority.
- Playfulness.
- Consumerism,
cultural/intellectual intermediates. Diffusion of high
culture and popular culture..
- Testualization,
transformation of reality into images, fragmentation of
time into a series of perpetual presents, eclecticism,
randomness¡K.