1. What is postmodernism?

2. Why should we care about it?

3.What does postmodernism have to say about the

identity?

5. What does postmodernism have to say about truth, beauty and goodness?

6. How postmodernism is influencing education, religion, the arts, and our daily lives.

Timelineas

TRADITIONAL WESTERN “MODERN” THINKING

Theocentric

Humanistic

Economic

Naturalistic

Early modernity: Renaissance to Industrial

Revolution Modernity: Industrial

Revolution Post- Modernity: Period of mass media

Timeline

TRADITIONAL WESTERN “MODERN” THINKING

Modern Period

Timeline

TRADITIONAL WESTERN “MODERN” THINKING

Postmodern period

1914 1939 1945 now

You are here

God, reason and progress

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.

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

People are the same everywhere

There are universal laws and truths

Knowledge is independent of culture, gender, etc.

Language is a man-made tool that refers to real things / truths

What Is Language?

as

Good literature is of timeless significance.

The text will reveal constants, universal truths, about human nature, because human nature itself is constant and unchanging.

Purpose of Literature

TRADITIONAL WESTERN “MODERN” THINKING

Early 1900s:

World War I

Worldwide poverty & exploitation

Intellectual upheaval:

Freud: psychoanalysis

Marx: class struggle

Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche

Picasso, Stravinsky, Kafka, Proust, Brecht, Joyce, Eliot

Death of the Old Order

PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

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

PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

E=mc2

Cubism

Surrealism

Dadaism

Expressionism

Breaking the Rules

PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

“Things fall apart,The centre cannot hold,Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

--Yeats, “The Second Coming”

A World with No Center

PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

Emphasis of subjectivity

Movement away from “objective” third-party narration

Tendency stream of conscioussnes

Obsession with the psychology of self

Rejection of traditional aesthetic theories

Experimentation with language

Breaking the Rules

PRECURSORS OF POSTMODERNISM

Continuation of modernist view

A term applied to all human sciences —anthropology, psychology, architecture, history, etc.

Reaction to modernism; systematic skepticism

Anti-structural

Acceptance of a New Age

POSTMODERNISM

The Enlightenment project is dead.

Acceptance of a New Age

POSTMODERNISM

Modernism and postmodernism are cultural formations that accompany specific stages of capitalism

1. Market capitalism: 18th-19th C.Steam locomotive Realism

2. Monopoly capitalism: Late 19th C to WWIIElectricity and automobile Modernism

3. Multinational/consumer capitalismNuclear and electronics Postmodernism

Culture & Capital

POSTMODERNISM

All is relative and subjective

Rejection of all master narratives

Skepticism of technique’ progress

Sense of fragmentation and decentered self

Multiple conflicting identities

Mass-mediated reality

The End of Master Narratives

POSTMODERNISM

All versions of reality are SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS

Concepts of good and evil

Metaphors for God

Language

The self

The End of Master Narratives

POSTMODERNISM

Language is a social construct that “speaks” & identifies the subject

Knowledge is contingent, contextual and linked to POWER

Truth is pluralistic, dependent upon the frame of reference of the observer

Values are derived from ordinary social practices, which differ from culture to culture and change with time.

Values are determined by manipulation and domination

Language As Social Construct

POSTMODERNISM

Observer is a participant/part of what is observed

Receiver of message is a component of the message

Information becomes information only when contextualized

The individual (the subject) is a cultural construct

Consider role of own culture when examining others

All interpretation is conditioned by cultural perspective and mediated by symbols and practice

The Observer is King

POSTMODERNISM

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- dystopias)

Integration of everyday experience, pop culture

Play and Parody

POSTMODERNISM

Parody, play, black humor, pastiche

Nonlinear, fragmented narratives

Ambiguities and uncertainties

Conspiracy and paranoia

Ironic detachment

Linguistic innovations

Postcolonial, global-English literature

Fragmented Identities

POSTMODERNISM

History as fact

Faith in social order

Family as central unit

Authenticity of originals

Mass consumption

Binary Oppositions

POSTMODERNISM

Written by the victors

Cultural pluralism

Alternate families

Hyper-reality (MTV)

small group identity

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

A gay Southern Baptist who practices Buddhist meditation and believes in the Big Bang theory.

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM

“The narrative is unravelled, the author is dead, the Enlightenment project is toast, and history is history.”

“An epochal shift in the basic condition in being.”

--Geoffrey Nunberg

An Epochal Shift in Thinking

POSTMODERNISM

People were burned at the stake for believing there was more than one version of reality.

Metaphors Kill

POSTMODERNISM

You can be a Christian (or Buddhist, or Hindu, etc.) in the postmodern world.

God is Not Dead

POSTMODERNISM

We all slip and slide between the objective and constructive views:

1. We live in a world of naïve realism.

2. But when we think about things, or have to explain our views, we become constructivists.

We Live in the Middle

POSTMODERNISM

THE HOPE OF POSTMODERNISTS:

The deconstruction of foundational views will lead to a recognition and acceptance of a pluralistic worldview.

Create a truly global civilization.

Celebrating Diversity

POSTMODERNISM

Different constructs of reality

“Lenses” through which we see the world

Celebrating Diversity

POSTMODERNISM

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