Introduction to postmodernism
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Transcript of Introduction to postmodernism
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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