Postmodernism

Artistic, cultural, and theoretical movement

This article is about the artistic, cultural, and theoretical movement. For the condition or state of being, see Postmodernity. For other uses, see Postmodernism (disambiguation).

Postmodernism

Carlton Bookcase, with a complex structure in many colours and a stylized human figure at the top, by Ettore Sottsass for the Memphis Group, 1981, Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris; Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany, by James Stirling, 1984,[1] showing an eclectic, postmodern mix of classical architecture (like the division of the facade in many horizontal strips that reference bossages) and colorful ironic detailing; Louis Ghost, based on chairs in the Louis XVI style but reinterpreted for the present day, by Philippe Starck, 2009, various locations[2]

Postmodernism

Preceded by Modernism
Postmodernity

* Deconstruction
* Hypermodernity
* Hyperreality
* Posthumanism
* Post-structuralism

Fields

* Anthropology
* Archaeology
* Architecture
* Art
* Criminology
* Dance
* Feminism
* Film
* Television
* Literature (Picture books)
* Music
* International relations
* Philosophy
* Anarchism
* Marxism
* Postpositivism
* Psychology
* Political science
* Theatre
* Theology and Religion

Reactions

* Criticism
* Metamodernism
* Post-postmodernism
* Remodernism

Related

* "Social constructionism" and social constructivism
* Social construction of nature
* Social construction of gender
* Social construction of technology
* Linguistic turn

* v
* t
* e

Postmodernism is a term used to refer to a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of representing reality. Still, there is disagreement among experts about its more precise meaning even within narrow contexts.

The term began to acquire its current range of meanings in literary criticism and architectural theory during the 1950s–1960s. In opposition to modernism's alleged self-seriousness, postmodernism is characterized by its playful use of eclectic styles and performative irony, among other features. Critics claim it supplants moral, political, and aesthetic ideals with mere style and spectacle.

In the 1990s, "postmodernism" came to denote a general – and, in general, celebratory – response to cultural pluralism. Proponents align themselves with feminism, multiculturalism, and postcolonialism. Building upon poststructural theory, postmodern thought defined itself by the rejection of any single, foundational historical narrative. This called into question the legitimacy of the Enlightenment account of progress and rationality. Critics allege that its premises lead to a nihilistic form of relativism. In this sense, it has become a term of abuse in popular culture.

## Definitions

[edit]

"Postmodernism" is "a highly contested term",[3] referring to "a particularly unstable concept",[4] that "names many different kinds of cultural objects and phenomena in many different ways".[5] It is "diffuse, fragmentary, [and] multi-dimensional".[6] Critics have described it as "an exasperating term"[7] and claim that its indefinability is "a truism".[8] Put otherwise, postmodernism is "several things at once".[7] It has no single definition, and the term does not name any single unified phenomenon, but rather many diverse phenomena: "postmodernisms rather than one postmodernism".[9][10][11]

Although postmodernisms are generally united in their effort to transcend the perceived limits of modernism, "modernism" also means different things to different critics in various arts.[12] Further, there are outliers on even this basic stance; for instance, literary critic William Spanos conceives postmodernism, not in period terms, but in terms of a certain kind of literary imagination so that pre-modern texts such as Euripides' Orestes or Cervantes' Don Quixote count as postmodern.[13]

All this notwithstanding, scholar Hans Bertens offers the following:

> If there is a common denominator to all these postmodernisms, it is that of a crisis in representation: a deeply felt loss of faith in our ability to represent the real, in the widest sense. No matter whether they are aesthestic [sic], epistemological, moral, or political in nature, the representations that we used to rely on can no longer be taken for granted.[14]

## Historical overview

[edit]

The term first appeared in print in 1870,[15][16] but it only began to enter circulation with its current range of meanings in the 1950s—60s.[17][3][18]

### Early appearances

[edit]

The term "postmodern" was first used in 1870 by the artist John Watkins Chapman, who described "a Postmodern style of painting" as a departure from French Impressionism.[15][19] Similarly, the first citation given by the Oxford English Dictionary is dated to 1916, describing Gus Mager as "one of the few 'post' modern painters whose style is convincing".[20]

Episcopal priest and cultural commentator J. M. Thompson, in a 1914 article, uses the term to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion, writing, "the raison d'être of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of modernism by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic tradition".[21] In 1926, Bernard Iddings Bell, president of St. Stephen's College and also an Episcopal priest, published Postmodernism and Other Essays, which marks the first use of the term to describe an historical period following modernity.[22][23] The essay criticizes lingering socio-cultural norms, attitudes, and practices of the Enlightenment. It is also critical of a purported cultural shift away from traditional Christian beliefs.[24][25][26]

The term "postmodernity" was first used in an academic historical context as a general concept for a movement by Arnold J. Toynbee in a 1939 essay, which states that "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914–1918".[27]

In 1942, the literary critic and author H. R. Hays describes postmodernism as a new literary form.[28] Also in the arts, the term was first used in 1949 to describe a dissatisfaction with the modernist architectural movement known as the International Style.[5]

Although these early uses anticipate some of the concerns of the debate in the second part of the 20th century, there is little direct continuity in the discussion.[29] Just when the new discussion begins, however, is also a matter of dispute. Various authors place its beginnings in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.[30]

### Theoretical development

[edit]

In the mid-1970s, the American sociologist Daniel Bell provided a general account of the postmodern as an effectively nihilistic response to modernism's alleged assault on the Protestant work ethic and its rejection of what he upheld as traditional values.[31] The ideals of modernity, per his diagnosis, were degraded to the level of consumer choice.[32] This research project, however, was not taken up in a significant way by others until the mid-1980s when the work of Jean Baudrillard and Fredric Jameson, building upon art and literary criticism, reintroduced the term to sociology.[33]

Discussion about the postmodern in the second part of the 20th century was most articulate in areas with a large body of critical discourse around the modernist movement. Even here, however, there continued to be disagreement about such basic issues as whether postmodernism is a break with modernism, a renewal and intensification of modernism,[5] or even, both at once, a rejection and a radicalization of its historical predecessor.[12]

According to scholar Steven Connor, discussions of the 1970s were dominated by literary criticism, to be supplanted by architectural theory in the 1980s.[34] Some of these conversations made use of French poststructuralist thought, but only after these innovations and critical discourse in the arts did postmodernism emerge as a philosophical term in its own right.

#### In literary and architectural theory

[edit]

The poet Robert Creeley in 1972

According to Hans Bertens and Perry Anderson, the Black Mountain poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley first introduced the term "postmodern" in its current sense during the 1950s.[35][3] Their stance against modernist poetry – and Olson's Heideggerian orientation – were influential in the identification of postmodernism as a polemical position opposed to the rationalist values championed by the Enlightenment project.[29]

During the 1960s, this affirmative use gave way to a pejorative use by the New Left, who used it to describe a waning commitment among youth to the political ideals socialism and communism.[3] The literary critic Irving Howe, for instance, denounced postmodern literature for being content to merely reflect, rather than actively attempt to refashion, what he saw as the "increasingly shapeless" character of contemporary society.[36][3]

In the 1970s, this changed again, largely under the influence of the literary critic Ihab Hassan's large-scale survey of works that he said could no longer be called modern. Taking the Black Mountain poets an exemplary instance of the new postmodern type, Hassan celebrates its Nietzschean playfulness and cheerfully anarchic spirit, which he sets off against the high seriousness of modernism.[3][37]

(Yet, from another perspective, Friedrich Nietzsche's attack on Western philosophy and Martin Heidegger's critique of metaphysics posed deep theoretical problems not necessarily a cause for aesthetic celebration. Their further influence on the conversation about postmodernism, however, would be largely mediated by French poststructuralism.[38])

If literature was at the center of the discussion in the 1970s, architecture is at the center in the 1980s.[34] The architectural theorist Charles Jencks, in particular, connects the artistic avant-garde to social change in a way that captures attention outside of academia.[3] Jenckes, much influenced by the American architect Robert Venturi,[39] celebrates a plurality of forms and encourages participation and active engagement with the local context of the built environment.[40] He presents this as in opposition to the "authoritarian style" of International Modernism.[5]

#### The influence of poststructuralism

[edit]

In the 1970s, postmodern criticism increasingly came to incorporate poststructuralist theory, particularly the deconstructive approach to texts most strongly associated with Jacques Derrida.[41] Derrida attempted to demonstrate that the whole foundationalist approach to language and knowledge was untenable and misguided. He was also critical of what he claimed to expose as the artificial binary oppositions (e.g., subject/object, speech/writing) that he claims are at the heart of Western culture and philosophy.[42] It is during this period that postmodernism comes to be particularly equated with a kind of anti-representational self-reflexivity.[43]

In the 1980s, some critics begin to take an interest in the work of Michel Foucault. This introduces a political concern about social power-relations into discussions about postmodernism.[44] Much of Foucault's project is, against the Enlightenment tradition, to expose modern social institutions and forms of knowledge as historically contingent forces of domination.[42] He aims to detotalize or decenter historical narratives to display modern consciousness as it is constituted by specific discourses and institutions that shape individuals into the docile subjects of social systems.[45]

This is also the beginning of the affiliation of postmodernism with feminism and multiculturalism.[46] The art critic Craig Owens, in particular, not only made the connection to feminism explicit, but went so far as to claim feminism for postmodernism wholesale,[47] a broad claim resisted by even many sympathetic feminists such as Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson.[48]

#### In social theory

[edit]

Although postmodern criticism and thought drew on philosophical ideas from early on, "postmodernism" was only introduced to the expressly philosophical lexicon by Jean-François Lyotard in his 1979[a] The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.[49][3] In this influential work, Lyotard offers the following definition: "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives [such as Enlightenment progress or Marxist revolution[3]]".[50] In a society with no unifying narrative, he argues, we are left with heterogeneous, group-specific narratives (or "language games", as adopted from Ludwig Wittgenstein[3]) with no universal perspective from which to adjudicate among them.[51]

Philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard, photo by Bracha L. Ettinger, 1995

According to Lyotard, this introduces a general crisis of legitimacy, a theme he adopts from the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, whose theory of communicative rationality Lyotard rejects.[52][53] While he was particularly concerned with the way that this insight undermines claims of scientific objectivity, Lyotard's argument undermines the entire principle of transcendent legitimization.[54][55] Instead, proponents of a language game must make the case for their legitimacy with reference to such considerations as efficiency or practicality.[3] Far from celebrating the apparently relativistic consequences of this argument, however, Lyotard focused much of his subsequent work on how links among games could be established, particularly with respect to ethics and politics.[56]

Nevertheless, the appearance of linguistic relativism inspired an extensive rebuttal by the Marxist critic Fredric Jameson.[57] Building upon the theoretical foundations laid out by the Marxist economist Ernst Mandel[3] and observations in the early work of the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard,[58] Jameson develops his own conception of the postmodern as "the cultural logic of late capitalism" in the form of an enormous cultural expansion into an economy of spectacle and style, rather than the production of goods.[59][3]

Baudrillard himself broke with Marxism, but continued to theorize the postmodern as the condition in which the domain of reality has become so heavily mediated by signs as to become inaccessible in itself, leaving us entirely in the domain of the simulacrum, an image that bears no relation to anything outside of itself.[60] Scholars, however, disagree about whether his later works are intended as science fiction or truthful theoretical claims.[61]

In the 1990s, postmodernism became increasingly identified with critical and philosophical discourse directly about postmodernity or the postmodern idiom itself.[62] No longer centered on any particular art or even the arts in general, it instead turns to address the more general problems posed to society in general by a new proliferation of cultures and forms.[34] It is during this period that it also comes to be associated with postcolonialism and identity politics.[32]

Around this time, postmodernism also begins to be conceived in popular culture as a general "philosophical disposition" associated with a loose sort of relativism. In this sense, the term also starts to appear as a "casual term of abuse" in non-academic contexts.[32] Others identify it as an aesthetic "lifestyle" of eclecticism and playful self-irony.[30]

## In various arts

[edit]

This section needs expansion with: painting, sculpture, film-based arts, other performance arts. You can help by adding to it. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (September 2024)

|

See also: Postmodern art

### Architecture

[edit]

Interior of the Chapel at the Episcopal Academy near Newtown Square, PA by alumnus of the Academy architect Robert Venturi

Main article: Postmodern architecture

Scholarship regarding postmodernism and architecture is closely linked with the writings of critic-turned-architect Charles Jencks, beginning with lectures in the early 1970s and his essay "The Rise of Post-Modern Architecture" from 1975.[63] His magnum opus, however, is the book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, first published in 1977, and since running to seven editions[64] (in which he famously wrote: "Modern architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri, on 15 July 1972 at 3:32 p.m. (or thereabouts) when the infamous Pruitt–Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grâce by dynamite."[65]).

Jencks makes the point that postmodernism (like modernism) varies for each field of art, and that for architecture it is not just a reaction to modernism but what he terms double coding: "Double Coding: the combination of Modern techniques with something else (usually traditional building) in order for architecture to communicate with the public and a concerned minority, usually other architects."[66]

In their book, "Revisiting Postmodernism", Terry Farrell and Adam Furman argue that postmodernism brought a more joyous and sensual experience to the culture, particularly in architecture.[67] For instance, in response to the modernist slogan of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe that "less is more", the postmodernist Robert Venturi rejoined that "less is a bore".[68]

### Dance

[edit]

Main article: Postmodern dance

The term "postmodern dance" is most strongly associated with the dancers of the Judson Dance Theater located in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s. Arguably its most important principle is taken from the composer John Cage's efforts to break down the distinction between art and life. This was developed in particular by the American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham. In the 1980s and 1990s dance began to incorporate other typically postmodern features such as the mixing of genres, challenging high–low cultural distinctions, and incorporating a political dimension.[69]

### Film

[edit]

Main article: Postmodern film

Postmodern film aims to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization, and to test the audience's suspension of disbelief.[70][71][72] Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and low art and often upend typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something that does not abide by traditional narrative expression.[73]

Postmodern film is often separated from modernist cinema and traditional narrative film[74] by three key characteristics. One is an extensive use of homage or pastiche.[75] The second is meta-reference or self-reflexivity, highlighting the construction and relation of the image to other images in media and not to any kind of external reality.[75] A self-referential film reminds the viewer – either through characters' knowledge of their own fictional nature, or through visuals – that the film itself is only a film. One technique used to achieve meta-reference is the use of intertextuality, in which the film's characters reference or discuss other works of fiction. A third characteristic is stories that unfold out of chronological order, deconstructing or fragmenting time to highlight that what is appearing on screen is constructed. Another common element is a bridging of the gap between highbrow and lowbrow activities and artistic styles,[76][77][75] for example, a parody of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling in which Adam is reaching for a McDonald's burger rather than the hand of God. Contradictions of all sorts – whether it be in visual technique, characters' morals, etc. – are crucial to postmodernism.[76][78]

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) might be the best-known postmodernist film,[79] about a future dystopia where "replicants" (human cyborgs) have been invented and are deemed dangerous enough to hunt down when they escape. There is extensive blurring of boundaries between genres and cultures, and styles that are generally more separate, along with the fusion of disparate styles and times, a common trope in postmodern cinema.[80][79] The fusion of film noir and science-fiction is another example of the film deconstructing cinema and genre.[citation needed]

### Graphic design

[edit]

Early mention of postmodernism as an element of graphic design appeared in the British magazine, "Design".[81] A characteristic of postmodern graphic design is that "retro, techno, punk, grunge, beach, parody, and pastiche were all conspicuous trends. Each had its own sites and venues, detractors and advocates."[82]

### Literature

[edit]

Main article: Postmodern literature

In 1971, the American scholar Ihab Hassan made the term popular in literary studies as a description of the new art emerging in the 1960s. According to scholar David Herwitz, writers such as John Barth and Donald Barthelme (and, later, Thomas Pynchon) responded in various ways to the aesthetic innovations of Finnegans Wake and the late work of Samuel Beckett. Postmodern literature often calls attention to issues regarding its own complicated connection to reality. The French critic Roland Barthes declared the novel to be an exhaustive form and explored what it means to continue to write novels under such a condition.[83]

In Postmodernist Fiction (1987), Brian McHale details the shift from modernism to postmodernism, arguing that the former is characterized by an epistemological dominant and that postmodern works have developed out of modernism and are primarily concerned with questions of ontology.[84] McHale's "What Was Postmodernism?" (2007)[85] follows Raymond Federman's lead in now using the past tense when discussing postmodernism.

### Music

[edit]

American singer-songwriter Madonna

Main articles: Postmodern music, Postmodern classical music, and Art pop

Music critic Andy Cush described Talking Heads as "New York art-punks" whose "blend of nervy postmodernism and undeniable groove made them one of the defining rock bands of the late 1970s and ’80s."[86] Media theorist Dick Hebdige, examining the "Road to Nowhere" (1985) music video, said the group "draw eclectically on a wide range of visual and aural sources to create a distinctive pastiche or hybrid 'house style' which they have used since their formation in the mid-1970s deliberately to stretch received (industrial) definitions of what rock/pop/video/Art/ performance/audience are", calling them "a properly postmodernist band."[87] According to lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter David Byrne, commenting for a 2011 museum exhibition, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990: "Anything could be mixed and matched – or mashed up, as is said today – and anything was fair game for inspiration.”[88]

The composer Jonathan Kramer has written that avant-garde musical compositions (which some would consider modernist rather than postmodernist) "defy more than seduce the listener, and they extend by potentially unsettling means the very idea of what music is."[89][page needed] In the 1960s, composers such as Terry Riley, Henryk Górecki, Bradley Joseph, John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Lou Harrison reacted to the perceived elitism and dissonant sound of atonal academic modernism by producing music with simple textures and relatively consonant harmonies, whilst others, most notably John Cage challenged the prevailing narratives of beauty and objectivity common to Modernism.[citation needed]

Author on postmodernism, Dominic Strinati, has noted, it is also important "to include in this category the so-called 'art rock' musical innovations and mixing of styles associated with groups like Talking Heads, and performers like Laurie Anderson, together with the self-conscious 'reinvention of disco' by the Pet Shop Boys".[90]

In the late-20th century, avant-garde academics labelled American singer Madonna as the "personification of the postmodern" because "the postmodern condition is characterized by fragmentation, de-differentiation, pastiche, retrospection and anti-foundationalism", which they argued Madonna embodied.[91] Christian writer Graham Cray also said that "Madonna is perhaps the most visible example of what is called post-modernism",[92] and Martin Amis described her as "perhaps the most postmodern personage on the planet".[92] She was also suggested by literary critic Olivier Sécardin to epitomise postmodernism.[93]

### Theater

[edit]

Main article: Postmodern theatre

Postmodern theater emerged as a reaction against modernist theater. Most postmodern productions are centered on highlighting the fallibility of definite truth, instead encouraging the audience to reach their own individual understanding. Essentially, thus, postmodern theater raises questions rather than attempting to supply answers.[citation needed]

## In philosophy

[edit]

This section needs expansion with: individual treatment of Fredric Jameson. You can help by adding to it. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (September 2024)

|

Main article: Postmodern philosophy

In the 1970s, a disparate group of poststructuralists in France developed a critique of modern philosophy with roots discernible in Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, and Martin Heidegger.[94] Although few themselves relied upon the term, they became known to many as postmodern theorists.[95] Notable figures include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and others. By the 1980s, this spread to America in the work of Richard Rorty and others.[94]

According to scholar Stuart Sim, one of the best ways to describe a specifically philosophical conception of postmodernism is as an anti-foundational "scepticism about authority, received wisdom, cultural and political norms and so on", which he says places it within a tradition dating back to ancient Greece.[96]

### Poststructuralism

[edit]

Main article: Poststructuralism

Poststructuralists, like structuralists, start from the assumption that people's identities, values, and economic conditions determine each other rather than having intrinsic properties that can be understood in isolation.[97] While structuralism explores how meaning is produced by a set of essential relationships in an overarching quasi-linguistic system, poststructuralism accepts this premise, but rejects the assumption that such systems can ever be fixed or centered.[98]

### Deconstruction

[edit]

Main article: Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a practice of philosophy, literary criticism, and textual analysis developed by Jacques Derrida.[99] Derrida's work has been seen as rooted in a statement found in Of Grammatology: "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte" ("there is no outside-text"). This statement is part of a critique of "inside" and "outside" metaphors when referring to the text, and is a corollary to the observation that there is no "inside" of a text as well.[100] This attention to a text's unacknowledged reliance on metaphors and figures embedded within its discourse is characteristic of Derrida's approach. Derrida's method sometimes involves demonstrating that a given philosophical discourse depends on binary oppositions or excluding terms that the discourse itself has declared to be irrelevant or inapplicable. Derrida's philosophy inspired a postmodern movement called deconstructivism among architects, characterized by a design that rejects structural "centers" and encourages decentralized play among its elements. Derrida discontinued his involvement with the movement after the publication of his collaborative project with architect Peter Eisenman in Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman.[101]

### Michel Foucault on power relations

[edit]

French philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault argued that power operates according to the logics of social institutions that have become unmoored from the intentions of any actual individuals. Individuals, according to Foucault, are both products and participants in these dynamics. In the 1970s, Foucault employed a Nietzsche-inspired "genealogical method" to analyze power-relations across their historical permutations.[102]

Both his political orientation and the consistency of his positions continue to be debated among critics and defenders alike. Nevertheless, Foucault's political works share two common elements: a historical perspective and a discursive methodology. He analyzed social phenomena in historical contexts and focused on how they have evolved over time. Additionally, he employed the study of texts, usually academic texts, as the material for his inquiries. In this way, Foucault sought to understand how the historical formation of discourses has shaped contemporary political thinking and institutions.[102]

### Gilles Deleuze on productive difference

[edit]

The work of Gilles Deleuze develops a concept of difference as a productive mechanism, rather than as a merely negative phenomenon. He advocates for a critique of reason that emphasizes sensibility and feeling over rational judgment. Following Nietzsche, Deleuze argues that philosophical critique is an encounter between thought and what forces it into action, and that this requires training, discipline, inventiveness, and even a certain "cruelty". He believes that thought cannot activate itself, but needs external forces to awaken and move it. Art, science, and philosophy can provide such activation through their transformative and experimental nature.[103]

### The criticisms of Jürgen Habermas

[edit]

The philosopher Jürgen Habermas, a prominent critic of philosophical postmodernism, argues in his 1985 work The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity that postmodern thinkers are caught in a performative contradiction, more specifically, that their critiques of modernism rely on concepts and methods that are themselves products of modern reason.[104]

Habermas criticizes these thinkers for their rejection of the subject and their embrace of experimental, avant-garde strategies. He asserts that their critiques of modernism ultimately lead to a longing for the very subject they seek to dismantle. Habermas also takes issue with postmodernists' leveling of the distinction between philosophy and literature. He argues that such rhetorical strategies undermine the importance of argument and communicative reason.[104]

Habermas's critique of postmodernism set the stage for much of the subsequent debate by clarifying some of its key underlying issues. Additionally, according to scholar Gary Aylesworth, "that he is able to read postmodernist texts closely and discursively testifies to their intelligibility", against those who would dismiss them as simple nonsense. His engagement with their ideas has lead some postmodern philosophers, such as Lyotard, to similarly engage with Habermas's criticisms.[104]

### The Postmodern Condition

[edit]

Main article: Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard is credited with being the first to use the term "postmodern" in a philosophical context, in his 1979 work The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. In it, he follows Wittgenstein's language games model and speech act theory, contrasting two different language games, that of the expert, and that of the philosopher. He talks about the transformation of knowledge into information in the computer age and likens the transmission or reception of coded messages (information) to a position within a language game.[105]

Lyotard defined philosophical postmodernism in The Postmodern Condition, writing: "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives...." [106] where what he means by metanarrative (in French, grands récits) is something like a unified, complete, universal, and epistemically certain story about everything that is. Against totalizing metanarratives, Lyotard and other postmodern philosophers argue that truth is always dependent upon historical and social context rather than being absolute and universal—and that truth is always partial and "at issue" rather than being complete and certain.[106]

### Jean Baudrillard on hyperreality

[edit]

In postmodernism, hyperreality refers to a state where experiences are mediated by technology, resulting in a network of images and signs without a corresponding external reality. Baudrillard describes hyperreality as the terminal stage of simulation, where signs and images become entirely self-referential. Drawing upon some of the technical vocabulary of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Baudrillard argues that production has shifted from creating real objects to producing signs and symbols. This system of symbolic exchange, detached from the real, constitutes hyperreality. In the words of one commentartor, "the hyperreal is a system of simulation that simulates itself."[107]

### Richard Rorty's neopragmatism

[edit]

Richard Rorty was an American philosopher known for his linguistic form of neopragmatism. Initially attracted to analytic philosophy, Rorty later rejected its representationalism. His major influences include Charles Darwin, Hans Georg Gadamer, G. W. F. Hegel, and Martin Heidegger.[108]

In his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Rorty challenged the notion of a mind-independent, language-independent reality. He argued that language is a tool used to adapt to the environment and achieve desired ends. This naturalistic approach led him to abandon the traditional quest for a privileged mental power that allows direct access to things-in-themselves.[108]

Instead, Rorty advocated for a focus on imaginative alternatives to present beliefs rather than the pursuit of well-grounded truths. He believed that creative, secular humanism, free from authoritarian assertions about truth and goodness, is the key to a better future. Rorty saw his neopragmatism as a continuation of the Enlightenment project, aiming to demystify human life and replace traditional power relations with those based on tolerance and freedom.[108]

## In society

[edit]

Postmodernism has influenced society at large, in such diverse fields as law, education, media, urban planning, science, religious studies, politics and others.

### Law

[edit]

Main article: Postmodern law

Postmodern interpretations of the law can involve critically considering legal inequalities connected to gender, class, race and ethnicity by acknowledging "diversity and multiplicity". Critical practices connected to postmodern philosophy, such as critical literacy and deconstruction, can be used as an interpretative tool to ensure that a range of different and diverse values and norms are acknowledged or considered.[109]

### Marketing

[edit]

Main article: Postmodern marketing

Postmodern marketing focuses on customized experiences where broad market generalizations are no-longer applied.[110] Academic Stephen Brown, from the University of Ulster, said, "Marketers know about consumers, consumers know about marketers, marketers know consumers know about marketers, and consumers know marketers know consumers know about marketers." According to Brown, writing in the European Journal of Marketing in 1993, the postmodern approach in many ways reject attempts to impose order and work in silos. Instead marketers should work collectively with "artistic" attributes of intuition, creativity, spontaneity, speculation, emotion and involvement.[111]

A 2020 paper in the Journal of Business Research sought to identify the transition from postmodernism to post-postmodernism, to benefit marketing efforts. Focusing on "the changing social conditions that lead the consumer to consume in a particular manner", the study takes the approach of analyzing song lyrics. Madonna (postmodern) and Taylor Swift (post-postmodern) are compared, with Lady Gaga used as a transitional example. Noting that "definitions of postmodernism are notoriously messy, frequently paradoxical and multi-faceted", five themes and characteristics of postmodernism consistently found in marketing literature – anti-foundationalism, de-differentiation, fragmentation, the reversal of production and consumption, and hyper-reality – were employed in the comparative analysis.[112]

### Urban planning

[edit]

Modernism sought to design and plan cities that followed the logic of the new model of industrial mass production; reverting to large-scale solutions, aesthetic standardisation, and prefabricated design solutions.[113] Modernism eroded urban living by its failure to recognise differences and aim towards homogeneous landscapes (Simonsen 1990, 57). Jane Jacobs' 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities[114] was a sustained critique of urban planning as it had developed within modernism and marked a transition from modernity to postmodernity in thinking about urban planning.[115]

Postmodernism has involved theories that embrace and aim to create diversity. It exalts uncertainty, flexibility and change and rejects utopianism while embracing a utopian way of thinking and acting.[116] Postmodernity of 'resistance' seeks to deconstruct modernism and is a critique of the origins without necessarily returning to them.[117] As a result of postmodernism, planners are much less inclined to lay a firm or steady claim to there being one single 'right way' of engaging in urban planning and are more open to different styles and ideas of 'how to plan'.[118]

Emerging in the mid-1980s, the "Los Angeles School" of urbanism, an academic movement loosely centered around the University of California, Los Angeles' Urban Planning Department, considered contemporary Los Angeles to be the quintessential postmodern city. This was in contrast with what had been the dominant ideas of the Chicago School, formed in the 1920s at the University of Chicago, with its framework of urban ecology and emphasis on functional areas of use within a city, and the concentric circles to understand the sorting of different population groups.[119][120] Edward Soja of the Los Angeles School combined Marxist and postmodern perspectives and focused on the economic and social changes (globalization, specialization, industrialization/deindustrialization, neo-liberalism, mass migration) that lead to the creation of large city-regions with their patchwork of population groups and economic uses.[119][121]

## Legacy

[edit]

Since the late 1990s, there has been a growing sentiment in popular culture and in academia that postmodernism "has gone out of fashion".[122] Others argue that postmodernism is dead in the context of current cultural production.[123][124][125]

In "White Noise/White Heat, or Why the Postmodern Turn in Rock Music Led to Nothing but Road" (2004), literary critic and professor of English and comparative literature Larry McCaffery reexamined his rock music essay, "White Noise", published in the journal American Book Review in 1990. He noted "the almost casual assurance" of its definition of postmodernism, and the "easy assumption throughout that it is possible to draw analogies about the 'innovative features' of fundamentally different media, such as music and fiction." From his 2004 perspective, he says, "If I were writing such an essay today I would omit 'postmodernism' entirely because I no longer believe that I (or anyone else for that matter) can articulate with any degree of coherence or specificity what 'postmodernism' is, or was, what it's supposed to mean, or, indeed, whether it ever existed at all."[126]

### Post-postmodernism

[edit]

Main articles: Modernism and Metamodernism

The connection between postmodernism, posthumanism, and cyborgism has led to a challenge to postmodernism, for which the terms Post-postmodernism and postpoststructuralism were first coined in 2003:[127][128]

> In some sense, we may regard postmodernism, posthumanism, poststructuralism, etc., as being of the 'cyborg age' of mind over body. Deconference was an exploration in post-cyborgism (i.e. what comes after the postcorporeal era), and thus explored issues of postpostmodernism, postpoststructuralism, and the like. To understand this transition from 'pomo' (cyborgism) to 'popo' (postcyborgism) we must first understand the cyborg era itself.[129]

More recently metamodernism, post-postmodernism and the "death of postmodernism" have been widely debated: in 2007 Andrew Hoberek noted in his introduction to a special issue of the journal Twentieth-Century Literature titled "After Postmodernism" that "declarations of postmodernism's demise have become a critical commonplace".

A small group of critics has put forth a range of theories that aim to describe culture or society in the alleged aftermath of postmodernism, most notably Raoul Eshelman (performatism), Gilles Lipovetsky (hypermodernity), Nicolas Bourriaud (altermodern), and Alan Kirby (digimodernism, formerly called pseudo-modernism). None of these new theories or labels have so far gained very widespread acceptance. Sociocultural anthropologist Nina Müller-Schwarze offers neostructuralism as a possible direction.[130]

In 2011, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 –1990, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, was billed as "the first in-depth survey of art, design and architecture of the 1970s and 1980s".[131] The exhibition was organized in three "broadly chronological" sections. The first focused mainly on architecture, "the discipline in which the ideas of postmodernism first emerged", introducing architects like Aldo Rossi, Charles Moore and James Stirling, also designers like Ron Arad, Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo. The second section focused on 1980s design, art, music, fashion, performance, and club culture, with artists like Grace Jones, Leigh Bowery, Klaus Nomi, Guy Bourdin, and Helmut Newton, and artifacts employed by Annie Lennox, Devo, Grandmaster Flash, Karole Armitage, Kazuo Ohno, and Michael Clark. The final section examined "the hyper-inflated commodity culture of the 1980s", focusing on money as "a source of endless fascination for artists, designers and authors", including Andy Warhol, Karl Lagerfeld, Swatch, MTV and Disney.[132] A review in the journal Design Issues began by noting the "daunting prospect" of reviewing an exhibition "on what might be considered the most slippery, indefinable 'movement'", and wondered what the curators must have felt: "One reviewer thought it 'a risky curatorial undertaking,' and even the curators themselves admit it could be seen as 'a fool's errand.'"[133]

## Criticisms

[edit]

Main article: Criticism of postmodernism

Criticisms of postmodernism are intellectually diverse. Since postmodernism criticizes both conservative and modernist values as well as universalist concepts such as objective reality, morality, truth, reason, and social progress, critics of postmodernism often defend such concepts from various angles.

Media theorist Dick Hebdige criticized the vagueness of the term, enumerating a long list of otherwise unrelated concepts that people have designated as postmodernism, from "the décor of a room" or "a 'scratch' video", to fear of nuclear armageddon and the "implosion of meaning", and stated that anything that could signify all of those things was "a buzzword".[134] The analytic philosopher Daniel Dennett criticized its impact on the humanities, characterizing it as producing "'conversations' in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster."[135]

Criticism of postmodernist movements in the arts include objections to departure from beauty, the reliance on language for the art to have meaning, a lack of coherence or comprehensibility, deviation from clear structure, and consistent use of dark and negative themes.[136][137]

## See also

[edit]

Theory

* Anti-foundationalism – Epistemology without sure premises
* Transmodernism – Philosophical and cultural movement

Culture and politics

* Defamiliarization – Artistic technique of presenting common things in an unfamiliar or strange way

Religion

* Postmodern religion – Religion influenced by postmodernism

History

* Second modernity – Industrial society transformed into a more reflexive network society or information society

Opposed by

* Altermodern – term for art that reacts against standardisation and commercialismPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
* Remodernism – Present-day modernist philosophical movement

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ English translation, 1984.

## Citations

[edit]

1. ^ Hall, William (2019). Stone. Phaidon. p. 79\. ISBN 978-0-7148-7925-3.
2. ^ "Philippe Starck, a pair of 'Louis Ghost' armchairs, Kartell. - Bukowskis". smow.com. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Buchanan 2018.
4. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 11.
5. ^ a b c d Connor 2013, p. 567.
6. ^ Herwitz 2008, Historical and Conceptual Overview.
7. ^ a b Bertens 1995, p. 3.
8. ^ Aylesworth 2015, Introduction.
9. ^ Brooker 2003, p. 204.
10. ^ Vanhoozer 2003, p. 3.
11. ^ Connor 2004, p. 17.
12. ^ a b Bertens 1995, pp. 4–5.
13. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 46.
14. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 10.
15. ^ a b Welsch & Sandbothe 1997, p. 76.
16. ^ Hassan 1987, pp. 12ff.
17. ^ Brooker 2003, p. 202.
18. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 4.
19. ^ Hassan 1987, pp. 12ff..
20. ^ "postmodern (adjective & noun)". Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
21. ^ Thompson 1914, p. 733.
22. ^ Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 2004.
23. ^ Madsen 1995.
24. ^ Bell 1926.
25. ^ Birzer 2015.
26. ^ Russello 2007.
27. ^ Toynbee 1961, p. 43.
28. ^ "postmodernism (n.)". OED. 2006. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
29. ^ a b Bertens 1995, p. 19.
30. ^ a b Brooker 2003, p. 203.
31. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 30.
32. ^ a b c Connor 2004, p. 5.
33. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 201.
34. ^ a b c Connor 2004, p. 12.
35. ^ Anderson, Perry (1998). The Origins of Postmodernity. Verso. pp. 6–12.
36. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 21.
37. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 24.
38. ^ Best & Kellner 1991, pp. 22–23.
39. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 55.
40. ^ Bertens 1995, pp. 59–60.
41. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 5.
42. ^ a b Best & Kellner 1991, p. 21.
43. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 70.
44. ^ Bertens 1995, pp. 7, 79.
45. ^ Best & Kellner 1991, pp. 39, 47.
46. ^ Bertens 1995, pp. 8, 70.
47. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 92.
48. ^ Bertens 1995, pp. 190–96.
49. ^ Aylesworth 2015, Introduction & §2.
50. ^ Lyotard 1984, p. xxiv.
51. ^ Aylesworth 2015, §2 The Postmodern Condition.
52. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 111.
53. ^ Lyotard 1984, pp. 65–66.
54. ^ Bertens 1995, pp. 119–121.
55. ^ Lyotard 1984, pp. xxiii–xxv.
56. ^ Gratton 2018, §§3.2–3.4.
57. ^ Bertens 1995, p. 108.
58. ^ Connor 2004, p. 3.
59. ^ Connor 2004, pp. 3–4.
60. ^ Connor 2004, pp. 568–69.
61. ^ Kellner 2020, §6. Concluding Assessment.
62. ^ Connor 2004, p. 4.
63. ^ Jencks, Charles (1975). "The Rise of Post Modern Architecture". Architectural Association Quarterly. 7 (4): 3–14 - via Google Books.
64. ^ Jencks, Charles (1977). The language of post-modern architecture. New York: Rizzoli. ISBN 0-8478-0167-5.
65. ^ Beal, Justin (2022). "What is/was Post-Modern (or Never Take the Marble for Granite)". Jencks Foundation. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
66. ^ Jencks, Charles (1974). The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. London: Academy Editions.
67. ^ Farrell, Terry (2017). Revisiting Postmodernism. Newcastle upon Tyne: RIBA Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85946-632-2.
68. ^ Schudel, Matt (28 September 2018). "Remembering Robert Venturi, the US architect who said: 'Less is a bore'". Independent. Archived from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
69. ^ Banes 2008.
70. ^ Hopkins, Susan (Spring 1995). "Generation Pulp". Youth Studies Australia. 14 (3): 14–19.
71. ^ Kretzschmar, Laurent (July 2002). "Is Cinema Renewing Itself?". Film-Philosophy. 6 (15). doi:10.3366/film.2002.0015.
72. ^ Hutcheon, Linda (19 January 1998). "Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern". University of Toronto English Library.
73. ^ "Representing Postmodern Marginality in Three Documentary Films. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com.
74. ^ Betz, Mark (23 March 2009). "Beyond the subtitle : remapping European art cinema". Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press - via Internet Archive.
75. ^ a b c Beginning Postmodernism, Manchester University Press: 1999 by Tim Woods
76. ^ a b Kretzschmar, Laurent (July 2002). "Is Cinema Renewing Itself?". Film-Philosophy. 6 (15). doi:10.3366/film.2002.0015.
77. ^ Hutcheon, Linda (19 January 1998). "Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern". University of Toronto English Library.
78. ^ Alemany-Galway, Mary (2002). A Postmodern Cinema. Kent, England: Scarecrow Press.
79. ^ a b Beginning Postmodernism, Manchester University Press: 1999 by Tim Woods
80. ^ Kretzschmar, Laurent (July 2002). "Is Cinema Renewing Itself?". Film-Philosophy. 6 (15). doi:10.3366/film.2002.0015.
81. ^ Poynor, Rick (2003). No more rules: graphic design and postmodernism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 18. ISBN 0-300-10034-5.
82. ^ Drucker, Johanna; McVarish, Emily (2008). Graphic Design History. Pearson. pp. 305–306. ISBN 978-0-13-241075-5.
83. ^ Herwitz 2008, History of Postmodernism.
84. ^ McHale, B. (2003). Postmodernist Fiction. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. ISBN 1134949162 - via Google Books.
85. ^ McHale, Brian (20 December 2007). "What Was Postmodernism?". Electronic Book Review. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
86. ^ Cush, Andy (21 September 2023). "Talking Heads' Original Lineup on Stop Making Sense, Their Early Days, and the Future". Pitchfork. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
87. ^ Mitchell, Tony (October 1989). "Performance and the Postmodern in Pop Music". Theatre Journal. 41 (3): 284. doi:10.2307/3208181. JSTOR 3208181.
88. ^ Jensen, Emily (27 July 2022). "How Virgil Abloh Defined Postmodern Fashion". Jing Daily. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
89. ^ Kramer, Jonathan (2016). Postmodern music, postmodern listening. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-5013-0602-0.
90. ^ Strinati, Dominic (1995). An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge. p. 234.
91. ^ Brown, Stephen (2003). "On Madonna'S Brand Ambition: Presentation Transcript". Association For Consumer Research. pp. 119–201. Archived from the original on 19 April 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
92. ^ a b McGregor, Jock (2008). "Madonna: Icon of Postmodernity" (PDF). L'Abri. pp. 1–8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 December 2010. Retrieved 29 March 2021.
93. ^ River, Canavan; McCamley, Claire (February 2020). "The passing of the postmodern in pop? Epochal consumption and marketing from Madonna, through Gaga, to Taylor". Journal of Business Research. 107: 222–230. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.005. ISSN 0148-2963.
94. ^ a b Best, Steven; Kellner, Douglas (2 November 2001). "The Postmodern Turn in Philosophy: Theoretical Provocations and Normative Deficits". UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. UCLA. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
95. ^ Bernstein, Richard J. (1992). The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity / Postmodernity. Polity. p. 11\. ISBN 978-0745609201.
96. ^ Sim 2011, p. 3.
97. ^ Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1963). Structural Anthropology (I ed.). New York: Basic Books. p. 324\. ISBN 0-465-09516-X. "quoting D'Arcy Westworth Thompson states: "To those who question the possibility of defining the interrelations between entities whose nature is not completely understood, I shall reply with the following comment by a great naturalist: In a very large part of morphology, our essential task lies in the comparison of related forms rather than in the precise definition of each; and the deformation of a complicated figure may be a phenomenon easy of comprehension, though the figure itself has to be left unanalyzed and undefined.""
98. ^ Brooker 2003, p. 205.
99. ^ Culler, Jonathan (2008). On deconstruction: theory and criticism after structuralism. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-46151-1.
100. ^ Derrida, Jacques (8 January 1998). "The Exorbitant Question of Method" (PDF). Of Grammatology. Translated by Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (Corrected ed.). Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 158–59, 163. ISBN 0-8018-5830-5.
101. ^ Peeters, Benoît (2013). Derrida: A Biography. Translated by Brown, Andrew. Polity Press. pp. 377–78. ISBN 978-0-7456-5615-1.
102. ^ a b Kelly, lead section.
103. ^ Aylesworth 2015, §4. Productive Difference.
104. ^ a b c Aylesworth 2015, §9.
105. ^ Aylesworth 2015.
106. ^ a b Lyotard, J.-F. (1979). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-944624-06-7. OCLC 232943026.
107. ^ Aylesworth 2015, §6. Hyperreality.
108. ^ a b c Grippe, lead section.
109. ^ Mathieu, Deflem (2008). Sociology of law : visions of a scholarly tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521857253. OCLC 173368722.
110. ^ Brown, Steven (1993). "Postmodern Marketing?". European Journal of Marketing. 27 (4). European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 27 Iss: 4: 19–34. doi:10.1108/03090569310038094. ISSN 0309-0566.
111. ^ Brown, Steven (1993). "Postmodern Marketing?". European Journal of Marketing. 27 (4). European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 27 Iss: 4: 19–34. doi:10.1108/03090569310038094. ISSN 0309-0566.
112. ^ Canavan, Brendan; McCamley, Claire (1 February 2020). "The passing of the postmodern in pop? Epochal consumption and marketing from Madonna, through Gaga, to Taylor". Journal of Business Research. 107: 222–230. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.005. ISSN 0148-2963.
113. ^ Goodchild 1990, pp. 119–137.
114. ^ Jacobs, Jane (1993). The death and life of great American cities. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-679-64433-4.
115. ^ Irving 1993, p. 479.
116. ^ Hatuka & d'Hooghe 2007, pp. 20–27.
117. ^ Irving 1993, p. 460.
118. ^ Goodchild 1990, pp. 119–137; Hatuka & d'Hooghe 2007, pp. 20–27; Irving 1993, pp. 474–487; Simonsen 1990, pp. 51–62
119. ^ a b Soja, Edward W. (14 March 2014). My Los Angeles: From Urban Restructuring to Regional Urbanization. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-95763-3 - via Google Books.
120. ^ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 437\. ISBN 9780415252256.
121. ^ Shiel, Mark (30 October 2017). "Edward Soja". Mediapolis. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
122. ^ Potter, Garry; Lopez, Jose, eds. (2001). After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism. London: The Athlone Press. p. 4.
123. ^ Fjellestad, Danuta; Engberg, Maria (2013). "Toward a Concept of Post-Postmodernism or Lady Gaga's Reconfigurations of Madonna". Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 12 (4). Archived from the original on 23 February 2013. DiVA 833886.
124. ^ Kirby, Alan (2006). "The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond". Philosophy Now. 58: 34–37.
125. ^ Gibbons, Alison (2017). "Postmodernism is dead. What comes next?". TLS. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
126. ^ McCaffery, Larry (24 May 2004). "White Noise/White Heat, or Why the Postmodern Turn in Rock Music Led to Nothing but Road". Electronic Book Review. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
127. ^ Mann, Steve (2003). "Decon2 (Decon Squared): Deconstructing Decontamination" (PDF). Leonardo. 36 (4): 285–290. doi:10.1162/002409403322258691. JSTOR 1577323. S2CID 57559253.
128. ^ Campbell, Heidi A. (2006). "Postcyborg Ethics: A New Way to Speak of Technology". Explorations in Media Ecology. 5 (4): 279–296. doi:10.1386/eme.5.4.279_1.
129. ^ Mann, Steve; Fung, James; Federman, Mark; Baccanico, Gianluca (2002). "PanopDecon: Deconstructing, decontaminating, and decontextualizing panopticism in the postcyborg era". Surveillance & Society. 1 (3): 375–398. doi:10.24908/ss.v1i3.3346.
130. ^ Müller Schwarze, Nina (2015). The Blood of Victoriano Lorenzo: An Ethnography of the Cholos of Northern Coclé Province. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Press.
131. ^ "Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 - 1990". Victoria and Albert Museum. 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
132. ^ "Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 – 1990" (PDF). [Victoria and Albert Museum]]. 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
133. ^ Atkinson, Paul (2012). ""Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-1990"". Design Issues. 28 (4): 93–97. doi:10.1162/DESI_r_00179. ISSN 0747-9360. JSTOR 23273855.
134. ^ Hebdige, Dick (2006). "Postmodernism and "the other side"". In Storey, John (ed.). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A reader. London: Pearson Education.
135. ^ "DENNETT ON WIESELTIER V. PINKER IN THE NEW REPUBLIC". Archived from the original on 5 August 2018.
136. ^ "Art Bollocks". Ipod.org.uk. 5 May 1990. Archived from the original on 31 January 2015.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
137. ^ de Castro, Eliana (12 December 2015). "Camille Paglia: "Postmodernism is a plague upon the mind and the heart"". FAUSTO - Filosofia, Cultura e Literatura Clássica. "Postmodernism is a plague upon the mind and the heart."

## Bibliography

[edit]

* Aylesworth, Gary (5 February 2015) [1st pub. 2005]. "Postmodernism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. sep-postmodernism (Spring 2015 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
* Bell, Bernard Iddings (1926). Postmodernism and Other Essays. Milwaukie: Morehouse Publishing Company.
* Banes, Sally (2008). "Postmodernism". In Kelly, Michael (ed.). Postmodern Dance. Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-511307-5. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
* Best, Steven; Kellner, Douglas (1991). Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. Macmillan.
* Bertens, Johannes Willem (1995). The Idea of the Postmodern: A History. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0415060110.
* Birzer, Bradley J. (9 November 2015). Russell Kirk: American Conservative. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813166209 - via Google Books.
* Brooker, Peter (2003). A Glossary of Cultural Theory (2nd ed.). Arnold. ISBN 978-0340807002.
* Buchanan, Ian (2018). "postmodernism". A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198794790.
* Connor, Steven, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521648400.
* Connor, Steven (2013). "postmodernism". In Michael Payne and Jessica Rae Barbera (ed.). A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1118438817.
* Goodchild, Barry (1990). "Planning and the Modern/Postmodern Debate". The Town Planning Review. 61 (2): 119–137. doi:10.3828/tpr.61.2.q5863289k1353533. JSTOR 40112887.
* Gratton, Peter (2018). "Jean François Lyotard". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
* Grippe, Edward. "Richard Rorty (1931—2007)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
* Hassan, Ihab (1987). The Postmodern Turn, Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture. Ohio University Press. p. 12ff.
* Hatuka, Tali; d'Hooghe, Alexander (2007). "After Postmodernism: Readdressing the Role of Utopia in Urban Design and Planning". Places. 19 (2): 20–27.
* Herwitz, Daniel (2008). "Postmodernism". In Kelly, Michael (ed.). Postmodernism: Historical and Conceptual Overview. Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-511307-5. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
* Irving, Allan (1993). "The Modern/Postmodern Divide and Urban Planning". University of Toronto Quarterly. 62 (4): 474–487. doi:10.3138/utq.62.4.474. S2CID 144261041.
* Kellner, Douglas (2020). "Jean Baudrillard". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
* Kelly, Mark. "Michel Foucault: Political Thought". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
* Lyotard, Jean-François (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0816611737.
* Madsen, Deborah (1995). Postmodernism: A Bibliography. Amsterdam; Atlanta, Georgia: Rodopi.
* "postmodern (adjective & noun)". Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
* Russello, Gerald J. (2007). The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 9780826265944 - via Google Books.
* Sim, Stuart (2011). "Postmodernism and Philosophy". In Sim, Stuart (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism (3 ed.). pp. 3–14.
* Simonsen, Kirsten (1990). "Planning on 'Postmodern' Conditions". Acta Sociologica. 33 (1): 51–62. doi:10.1177/000169939003300104. JSTOR 4200779. S2CID 144268594.
* Thompson, J. M. (1914). "Post-Modernism". The Hibbert Journal. XII (4): 733.
* Toynbee, Arnold J. (1961) [1939]. A study of History. Vol. 5\. Oxford University Press. p. 43 - via Google Books.
* Vanhoozer, Kevin J. (2003). "Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity: A Report on Knowledge (of God)". In Vanhoozer, Kevin J. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 22–25.
* Welsch, Wolfgang; Sandbothe, Mike (1997). "Postmodernity as a Philosophical Concept". International Postmodernism. Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages. Vol. XI. p. 76\. doi:10.1075/chlel.xi.07wel. ISBN 978-90-272-3443-8 - via Google Books.

## External links

[edit]

Library resources about
Postmodernism

* * *

* Resources in your library
* Resources in other libraries

Wikiquote has quotations related to Postmodernism.

Look up postmodernism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Postmodernism.

* Discourses of Postmodernism. Multilingual bibliography by Janusz Przychodzen (PDF file)
* Modernity, postmodernism and the tradition of dissent, by Lloyd Spencer (1998)
* Postmodernism and truth by philosopher Daniel Dennett
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on postmodernism

Links to related articles

* v
* t
* e

Aesthetics

Areas|

* Ancient
* Africa
* India
* Internet
* Japanese
* Mathematics
* Medieval
* Music
* Nature
* Science
* Theology

Schools|

* Aestheticism
* Classicism
* Fascism
* Feminism
* Formalism
* Historicism
* Marxism
* Modernism
* Postmodernism
* Psychoanalysis
* Realism
* Romanticism
* Symbolism
* Theosophy
* more...

Philosophers|

* Abhinavagupta
* Adorno
* Alberti
* Aristotle
* Aquinas
* Balázs
* Balthasar
* Baudelaire
* Baudrillard
* Baumgarten
* Bell
* Benjamin
* Burke
* Coleridge
* Collingwood
* Coomaraswamy
* Danto
* Deleuze
* Dewey
* Fry
* Goethe
* Goodman
* Greenberg
* Hanslick
* Hegel
* Heidegger
* Hume
* Hutcheson
* Kant
* Kierkegaard
* Klee
* Langer
* Lipps
* Lukács
* Lyotard
* Man
* Maritain
* Merleau-Ponty
* Nietzsche
* Ortega y Gasset
* Pater
* Plato
* Rancière
* Rand
* Richards
* Ruskin
* Santayana
* Schiller
* Schopenhauer
* Scruton
* Tagore
* Tanizaki
* Vasari
* Wilde
* Winckelmann
* more...

Concepts|

* Appropriation
* Art for art's sake
* Art manifesto
* Artistic merit
* Avant-garde
* Beauty
* Feminine
* Masculine
* Camp
* Comedy
* Creativity
* Cuteness
* Depiction
* Disgust
* Ecstasy
* Elegance
* Emotions
* Entertainment
* Eroticism
* Fashion
* Fun
* Gaze
* Harmony
* Humour
* Interpretation
* Judgment
* Kama
* Kitsch
* Life imitating art
* Magnificence
* Mimesis
* Perception
* Picturesque
* Quality
* Rasa
* Recreation
* Reverence
* Style
* Sublime
* Taste
* Tragedy
* Work of art

Works|

* Hippias Major (c. 390 BC)
* Poetics (c. 335 BC)
* The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (c. 100)
* On the Sublime (c. 500)
* A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
* Lectures on Aesthetics (1835)
* "The Critic as Artist" (1891)
* In Praise of Shadows (1933)
* Art as Experience (1934)
* "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935)
* "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" (1939)
* Critical Essays (1946)
* The Aesthetic Dimension (1977)
* Why Beauty Matters (2009)

Related|

* Aestheticization of politics
* Applied aesthetics
* Arts criticism
* Axiology
* Evolutionary aesthetics
* Mathematical beauty
* Neuroesthetics
* Patterns in nature
* Philosophy of design
* Philosophy of film
* Philosophy of music
* Psychology of art
* Theory of art

* Index
* Outline
* Category
* Philosophy portal

* v
* t
* e

Sub-fields of and approaches to human geography

Sub-fields|

* Agricultural
* Behavioral
* Cognitive
* Cultural
* Development
* Economic
* Emotional
* Food
* Health
* Historical
* Internet
* Language
* Marketing
* Military
* Political
* Population
* Religion
* Settlement
* Regional
* Transport
* Urban
* Social
* Strategic
* Tourism

Approaches|

* Critical
* Culture theory
* Feminist
* Marxist
* Modernism
* Structuralism
* Semiotics
* Non-representational theory
* Postmodernism
* Post-structuralism
* Deconstruction
* Scientific method
* Sexuality and space
* Time

* Category
* Portal
* Commons

Authority control databases

International|

* FAST

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Japan
* Czech Republic
* Latvia
* Israel

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template