Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985)

P OSTMODERNITY The economic, cultural and social period AFTER modernity An “incredulity towards metanarratives” (Jean-François Lyotard) “The End of History” (Francis Fukuyama) Late Capitalism / Post-Industrial / Globalisation Dispersed sources of information – the rise of the digital Questions the very idea of periods: when did it start? Has it ended? P OSTMODERNISM A philosophical and aesthetic response to postmodernity Irreverence towards ‘high culture’ Self-conscious about its own representation and fictionality Artistic and stylistic eclecticism: the ‘global village’ Viewing history as a subjective narrative; there is no impartial viewpoint Mediation of experience

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe prints (1960s)

Andy Warhol, Skull series (1976)

The suburban landscape…stands as the material counterpart to specific drives and tendencies in American culture apparent from the postwar years onwards: a massive expansion of the middle class, a heightened valorization of the nuclear family and consequent reification of gender identities, a trend – both utopian and exclusionary in nature – towards cultural homogenization, and a collapse of the distinction between private and public spaces. Robert Beuka, SuburbiaNation (2004)