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Postmodernism

Postmodernism. An Overview. Modernity. God, reason and progress Reason is the ultimate judge of what is true, and therefore of what is right, and what is good (what is legal and what is ethical). There was a center to the universe.

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Postmodernism

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  1. Postmodernism An Overview

  2. Modernity God, reason and progress Reason is the ultimate judge of what is true, and therefore of what is right, and what is good (what is legal and what is ethical). There was a center to the universe. Progress is based upon knowledge, and man is capable of discerning objective absolute truths in science and the arts. Science thus stands as the paradigm for any and all socially useful forms of knowledge. Science is neutral and objective Modernism is linked to capitalism—progressive economic administration of world Modernization of 3rd world countries (imposition of modern Western values) Newtonian Order TRADITIONAL WESTERN “MODERN” THINKING

  3. Language & Truth People are the same everywhere. There is a stable, coherent, knowable self. This self is conscious, rational, autonomous, and universal. There are universal laws and truths Knowledge is objective, independent of culture, gender, etc. The knowledge produced by science is "truth," and is eternal. In a world governed by reason, the true will always be the same as the good and the right (and the beautiful); there can be no conflict between what is true and what is right (etc.). Language is a man-made tool that refers to real things / truths I, the subject, speak language I have a discernible self The self is the center of existence What Is Language? TRADITIONAL WESTERN “MODERN” THINKING

  4. Enlightenment/Modernity • Modernity is fundamentally about order: about rationality and rationalization, creating order out of chaos. • The assumption is that creating more rationality is conducive to creating more order, and that the more ordered a society is, the better it will function (the more rationally it will function). • Thus modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between "order" and "disorder," so that they can assert the superiority of "order." • In western culture, then, disorder becomes "the other"—defined in relation to other binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational, (etc.) becomes part of "disorder," and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society.

  5. Modernism Early 1900s: World War I Worldwide poverty & exploitation Intellectual upheaval: Freud: psychoanalysis Marx: class struggle Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Neitzsche Picasso, Stravinsky, Kafka, Proust, Brecht, Joyce, Eliot Death of the Old Order PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

  6. Relativism Einstein: relativity, quantum mechanics Refutation of Newtonian science Time is relative Matter and energy are one Light as both particle and wave Universe is strange The Bending of Time & Space E=mc2 PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

  7. Modernist Art Cubism Surrealism Dadaism Expressionism Breaking the Rules PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

  8. “Things fall apart,The centre cannot hold,Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” W.B. Yeats “The Second Coming” • Scientific, artistic and intellectual upheaval • Beginning of mass consumption and mass media • Horrors of war • Depression

  9. Modernist Literature Emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity Fragmentation and discontinuity part of the new modern experience. Movement away from “objective” third-party narration. Psychological realism and stream of consciousness. Obsession with the psychology of self Rejection of traditional aesthetic theories Experimentation with language, form. Mixing high and low forms (popular culture). Breaking the Rules PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

  10. Enlightenment/Modernity • Modernism tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history, 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 or incoherence, but rather celebrates it.

  11. What is Postmodernism? The Enlightenment project is dead. Acceptance of a New Age POSTMODERNISM

  12. Postmodernism: Basic Concepts Life just is Rejection of all master narratives All “truths” are contingent cultural constructs Skepticism of progress; anti-technology bias Sense of fragmentation and decentered self Multiple conflicting identities Mass-mediated reality The End of Master Narratives POSTMODERNISM

  13. Postmodernism: Basic Concepts All versions of reality are SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS Concepts of good and evil Metaphors for God Language The self Gender EVERYTHING! The End of Master Narratives POSTMODERNISM

  14. Post-Modernism • Skepticism toward any representation of reality that claimed to be universal or objective • Focus on the “construction of reality” through language and symbol • Emphasis on the local and particular rather than the universal • In the arts, a tendency toward parody, pastiche, and an eclectic mixture of styles

  15. PostModern Literature Extreme freedom of form and expression Repudiation of boundaries of narration & genre Intrusive, self-reflexive author Parodies of meta-narratives Deliberate violation of standards of sense and decency (which are viewed as methods of social control) Integration of everyday experience, pop culture Play and Parody POSTMODERNISM

  16. High and Low Integration “The erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture” - Frederic Jameson 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.

  17. Mixing of High and Low

  18. Irony, Black humor Writing that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. Underscores the senselessness or futility of life and  makes clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character.

  19. Freedom of form, Non-linear Narratives • Extreme freedom of form and expression • New and experimental ways of presenting material • Plot does not follow a traditional plot structure • Events are portrayed out of • chronological order

  20. Stream of Consciousness • A literary technique in which the character’s thoughts are revealed in a free-associative manner intended to replicate as closely as possibly the free range of an individual’s thought process. •  This representation of consciousness can include perceptions or impressions, thoughts incited by outside sensory stimuli, and fragments of random, disconnected thoughts. Stream of consciousness writing often lacks "correct" punctuation or syntax, favoring a looser, more incomplete style.

  21. Michael Jordan’s Twitter • “I don’t think I need to try any new fruit. I’ve had enough different kinds for now.” • “I’m so sick of using batteries.” • “I had a dream last night about lots of cats and enormous rabbits in a barn.” • “Why doesn’t anyone go on picnics anymore?”

  22. "Such fools we all are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June." • -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

  23. Pastiche To combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. In Postmodernist literature this can be an homage to or a parody of past styles. It can be seen as a representation of the chaotic, pluralistic, or information-drenched aspects of postmodern society. It can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on situations in postmodernity.

  24. Conspiracy and Paranoia •  There is an ordering system behind the chaos of the world. For the postmodernist, no ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd.  •  An intense fear that individuals can be shaped or controlled by powerful external forces. Recurrent anxieties about the power of large organizations to control human beings.

  25. War of the Worlds Halloween performance of H.G. Wells’s “War of the Worlds on October 30, 1938. Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast, and in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety leading to World War II, took it to be a news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, people fleeing the area, others thinking they could smell poison gas or could see flashes of lightning in the distance.

  26. Metafiction • Although characteristics of metafiction vary as widely as the spectrum of technique used within them, a pattern of several common traits can be traced.  These techniques often appear in combination, but also can appear singularly. 1. creating biographies of imaginary writers 2. presenting and discussing fictional works of an imaginary character

  27. Authors of metafiction often violate narrative levels by . . . • intruding to comment on writing • involving his or herself with fictional characters • directly addressing the reader • rejecting conventional plot • refusing to attempt to become "real life"

  28. www.public.asu.edu/~kheenan/.../powerpoints/postmodernism.pptwww.public.asu.edu/~kheenan/.../powerpoints/postmodernism.ppt • http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_benton_introhuman_2/23/5918/1515060.cw/content/index.html • www.skutski.org/postmodernism.ppt • http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Metafiction.html

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