Post-Modernism: A very short introduction

Characteristics:
politically marxist, certain of its uncertainty, excessively critical self-consciousness.

France (student riots 1968)
post war period- strongly ethical and individualist existentialism--->1960s/70s Skeptical and anti-humanist attitudes (deconstructivist and poststructuralist theory) and novelists became more cold with contradiction filled anti-narrative method (??).

postmodernist doctrines drew upon philosophical, sociological, and political thought, which disseminated itself into the artistic avant-garde and into the humanities departments of universities as theory.

this is a new form of theory, one that cannot be tested like the scientific. it is more self involved, skeptical type of discourse which adapted general concepts derived from traditional philosophy to literary sociological or other material which was thereby given a postmodernist twist (8).

concern for the functions of language from structuralism. 2 doctrines: Derrida and Wittgenstein. Derrida was ignorant of the history of philosophical problems that Wittgenstein faced and was unaware of some of the standard solutions to them in the anglo-american philosophical tradition leading to intellectual devision, mutual incomprehension, and splits in many university departments that still exist today.

issues with accessibility of language and 'normal' ways of seeing things.

books of a postmodernist persuasion are often advertised for their 'use of theory' and their 'insights' rather than answering questions.

New Ways of Seeing the World

RESISTING GRAND NARRATIVES
simplifying to the extreme--meta narratives

DECONSTRUCTION
dependent on relativism
will always play with language because language is unreliable

SIGNS AS SYSTEMS
all worlds must be explained only in terms of their relationships to the various systems in which they take part--we can only know what we are permitted to know about reality.

PLAYING WITH THE TEXT

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
the articulation or interpretation of this play of language should act independently of any supposed intentions of the author.

METAPHOR

SKEPTICISM AND IDEOLOGY
more and more theorizers of the working of culture
culture contains a number of perpetually competing stories
postmodernism thus involved a highly critical epistemology opposed to dominant ideologies

REWRITING HISTORY
history is just a socially acceptable narrative competing for our attention and our assent. we should be more skeptically aware of who is constructing history. not that facts don't exist.

The Post Modern Condition

CONFIDENCE IN THE TRUTH
'realism lost'

UNREAL IMAGES
mass media is problematic and therefore a target of post modernism (the clear image is actually unclear)

THERE IS PLENTY OF GREAT ART OUTSIDE POST MODERNISM