Postmodernism

There are no eternal facts, as there are no eternal truths.
There are no facts, only interpretations.

-Friedrich Nietzche 1844-1900
German philosopher

Postmodernism: a definition

• There is no fixed definition
• Reaction against modernism?
• Evolution on a path to?
• Some characteristics
• General agreement

Postmodernist

• Post WWII
• Later in North America (1960-1970)
• Reaction to war and its aftermath
• Reaction to devastation
• Modernists
• Words no longer adequate
• Continued experiments with form
• Questioned everything
• What is going on?

Postmodernism and capitalism

• Market capitalism
• 18th-19th centuries
• Technology
• Stream driven motor
• Literature
• Realism
• Jane Austen

Second stage...

• Late 19th century to mid 20th century
• Monopoly – capitalism
• Technology
• Electric and internal combustion engine (car)
• Literature
• Modernism

Third stage...

• Multinational or consumer capitalism
• Emphasis on marketing, selling and consuming goods
• Not on producing them
• Technologies
• Nuclear and electronic
• Literature
• Postmodernism

This is where we are now. No one knows what comes next because there are no rules.

Realism

• Characters
• Recognizable
• Stress on character development
• Plot
• Structured, conventional, linear
• Point of view
• Established techniques
• Understandable
• Language
• Does not question the ability of language to communicate ideas
• “Grand narratives”
• Assumes there is meaning in world
• Interest in political extremes

Modernist

• Break with 19th century
• Key year: 1922
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
• Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
• Joyce and Woolf imploys streams of consciousness in their work
• Key event: World War I
• Writers could no longer write realistically because of how the world had changed

Modernism

• Traditional literary models
• Could not adequately represent the post war world
• The futility and anarchy that followed
• Britain
• Russia
• Often suspicious of science and technology used in war
• First technical war
• Writers viewed the world as fragmented and decayed
• World may be understood
• But only in small pieces
• Visual arts:
• Expressionism
• Abstract
• interpretive
• Surrealism
• based on dreams

Modernism & literature

• Literary characters
• Not as “real”
• Use of outsiders
• Fewer traditional heroes
• Story may not be told from omniscient point of view
• Multiple points of view in one story
• Turn from external reality of inner states of consciousness
• E.g. Stream of consciousness writing
• Character’s thoughts
• Plot
• Less structured or “planned”
• May be no “neat” conclusion
• Use of unconventional techniques to advance plot:
• E.g. Songs, newspaper articles
• Popular culture elements

Modernism & language

• Language
• Skepticism
• Language’s ability to reflect reality
• Author’s ability to reflect reality
• “Language exists to conceal thought” –T. S. Eliot

Postmodernism & literature

• Develops and extends style of modernist literature
• Both modernism and postmodernism reject 19th century realism
• Literature becomes more open-ended, fragmented
• Aristotle (350 BC)
• Beginning, middle and end
• May be no clear cut ending, or,
• May return to beginning
• Consciously disorient the reader
• Not what we expect
• Not chronological, straightforward storytelling

High versus Low Culture

• Blurs the line between
• “high” and “low” culture
• E.g. Billy The Kid
• Fiction and non-fiction
• E.g. film and books
• Who decides?
• E.g. postmodern artist: Andy Warhol
• E.g. photos of Marilyn Monroe

Postmodernism & the interpretation of literature

• Who decides what a poem/story/novel means?
• Ask the author?
• May not be totally aware
• Ask the reader?
• Everyone brings their own set of assumptions
• The text itself?
• Does reader require knowledge of an external source or event?

Modern thinking vs. Postmodern thinking

Structure	Anarchy
Theory	Anti-theory
Authoritative interpretation	No final interpretation
Search for underlying meaning	No underlying meaning
Encyclopaedic knowledge (contained)	Web of understanding

Postmodernism

• Distrust towards universal claims about
• Truth
• Ethics
• beauty
• Instead
• Based on individual perception
• Provisional
• No fixed knowledge
• The way you view the world

Modernism & grand narratives

• Stories on how we see the world define ourselves
• Every belief system based on “grand narratives”
• Canada
• What do we believe about our country?
• United States

The Grand narrative of Marxism

• Basic belief
• Capitalism will collapse on itself
• A utopian socialist will happen
• What really happened?
• Feudal systems collapsed
• Replaced by totalitarian regimes
• Narrative fell apart, there was nothing at the core

Post modernism and grand narratives

• Critiques these stories
• beliefs
• Points out that they serve to hide the contradictions
• Occur in any social organization
• Every attempt to create “order”
• Also demands the creation of a equal amount of “disorder”

Grand narratives

• Rejected by post modernism
• Replaced with “mini-narratives”
• About local events
• Not large scale or global
• Provisional, based on situation
• Make not claim to universally true

Modernism & education

• Why are we educated?
• What is the purpose of gaining knowledge?
• To become an “educated” person
• Ideal:
• Liberal arts education

Postmodernism & education

• Knowledge is functional
• You learn things
• Not to know them
• But to use that knowledge
• Emphasis on skills and training
• Much more accepting of modern world
• May use technology to produce art
• May sample other works of art to produce new work
• What is an original?
• E.g. music recordings

Postmodernism & philosophy

• Desire to return to pre-post modern era
• Associated with conservative political and religious groups
• Postmodernism
• Attracts liberals, radicals, feminists

Postmodernism

• Focus thinking about action/social reforms as local/limited
• E.g. improved day care centres in your own community
• Focus on specific local goals
• “think globally, act locally”
• Offers an alternative
• To global culture of consumption
• Celebrates a variety of voices
• Interested in differences and diversity