What is Postmodernism? A complicated term A set of ideas emerged as an area of academic study since the mid-1980s It is hard to define it is a concept that appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study It's hard to locate it temporally or historically It's not clear exactly when it begins

Philosophy of Postmodernism All truth is limited, approximate, and is constantly evolving (Nietzsche, Kuhn, Popper). No theory can ever be proved true - we can only show that a theory is false (Popper). No theory can ever explain all things consistently (Godel's incompleteness theorem). There is always a separation between our mind & ideas of things and the thing in itself (Kant). Physical reality is not deterministic (Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, Bohr). Science concepts are mental constructs (logical positivism, Mach, Carnap). Metaphysics is empty of content. Thus absolute and certain truth that explains all things is unobtainable.

Human Condition in Postmodernism Postmodernism may be considered a reaction against that confidence in reason. There is no God up there we are alone here. The concept of finite is a barrier that can never be leapt.. There is nothing above us There is no transcendent reality. There is no objective truthavailable to us. We are finite, limited people in a particular space and time. There is no way to have access to objective truth There is no possibility to really know anything. The brain may beconsidered only an organism that can be known through anexperiment in a laboratory. Human beings have only got Language.

Another Postmodernism's definition Postmodernism is the belief that: Most theoretical concepts are defined by their role in the conjectured theoretical network. (A subset are 'operationally' defined by a fairly direct tie to observations.) ‏ The theoretical network is incomplete. It follows that theoretical concepts are 'open', or what logicians call 'partially interpreted'. Research continues precisely because they are open; the research task is to 'close' them, although never completely.

Features of Postmodernism Socioeconomic part: Multinational capital Reproduction Information / Service Poetics: Decentred subject Caricature Labyrinth Intertextuality

Postmodernism from a literary perspective An emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing. A movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner's multiply-narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism. A blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary (as in T.S. Eliot or ee cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce). An emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials. A tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something constructed and consumed in particular ways. A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation. A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.

Language We produce ourselves in language We use different types of language according to the different situations we have to face. Language is the only way to characterize a character in a text.

Texts and Intertestuality There is nothing outside the text All texts are the product of Intertestuality

Example of Postmodern Texts Nice Work by David Lodge Possession by A.S. Byatt