Giulia Corso Classe V A Anno scolastico 2010/2011

POSTMODERNISM Is hard to define Is a complicated term It’s not clear when it begins to define it We speaks about modernism

MODERNISM Two modes of definition The first definition comes from Aesthetic movement labeled modernism. The second definition comes more from history and sociology than from literature of art history This approach contrast “posmodernity with modernity”,rather than “postmodernism with modernism” modernity”

The main characteristics of modernism include: 1.An enphasis on subjectivity in writing and how seeing rather than on what is perceived. 2.A movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omiscient third person narrator 3.Poetry seems more documentary and prose seems more poetic 4.An emphasis on fragmented forms: discontinuous narratives 5.A tendency toward reflexivity or self consciousness 6.A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favour of minimalist designs. 7.A rejection of the distinction between high and low or popular culture.

Sameness and difference between modernism and postmodernism Sameness: 1.Rejecting boundaries between hig and low form of art 2.Rejecting rigid genre distinctions 3.Reflexivity and self consciousness Difference: Modernism tends to present a fragmentated view of human subjectivity and history and present it as something tragic, postmodernism instead doesn’t lament the idea of fragmentation but chelebrates that.

Capitalism Another way of looking at the relation between modernism and postmodernism They are particular stages of capitalism The first is associated with technoligical developments and with a particular kind of aesthetics:realism. The second stage is associated with electric and internal combustion motors and with modernism. The third is multinational or consumer capitalism associated with nuclear and eletronic technologies and correlated with postmodernism.

Postmodernism society 1.There are no originals only copies or what Jean Badrillard call simulacra 2.Is concerned with the organization of knowledge. 3.Knowledge is equated with science and is contrasted to narrative,science was good knowledge and a narrative is bad,primitive,irrational. 4.The advent of electronic computer technologies has revolutionized the modes of knowledge production, distribution in the society.

What’s the difference between modernism and modernity? Modernism refers to the aesthetic movements of the twentieth century Modernity refers to a set of philosophical,political and ethical ideals wich provide the basis for the aesthetic aspect of mdernism. ModernityModernity id older than modernism the label modern first articulated in ninteenth-century sociology,was meant to distinguish the present era from the previous one which was labeled antiquity. The modern era is associated with the European Enlightenment which begins in the middle of the eighteen century.Enlightenment

The basic ideas of the Enlightenment Are similar at the basic ideas of humanism 1.There is a stable knowable self. This self is conscious,rational,autonomous. 2.This self knows itself and the word through reason posited as the highest form of mental functioning. 3.The mode of knowing produced by the objective rational self is science. 4.The knowledge produced by science is truth and is eternal. 5.All human istitutions and practices can be analyzed by science. 6.Reason is the ultimate judge od what is true. 7.In a word governed by reason the true will always be the same as the good and right. 8.Science is the paradigm for any and all socially useful forms of knowledge. 9.Also language must be rational, must be trasparent.

Modernity is about orderrationality And rationalization The assumption is that creating more rationality is conducive to creationg more order and that more ordered a society os the better it will function. Modern societies go about creating categories labeled order or disorder have to do with the effort to achieve stability.Francois Lyotard equates the idea of totality with the idea of stability.totality, stability and order are maintained in modern societies through the means of grand narratives. Grand narrative in american culture might be the story that democracy is the most enlightened form of governament and that democracy can and will lead to universal human happiness. Postmodernism reject grand narrative and prefers mini narratives,stories that explain small practices and local events.