1. You made it to the LAST “ism”!!
Post-Modernism
You made it to the LAST “ism”!!

2. When? Began after WWII/early 1950s
continues through to the present day…or does it?
Some argue it ended in the mid ’80s/’90s w/the personal computer—EVEN MORE say it ended with the integration of the internet creating globalization: meta-modernism
plurality; “oscillation”; mercurial…
Offshoot of Modernism, both a continuance and a rejection

3. Influences WAR No longer romanticized/idealized--harsh realities
WWII & Atomic Warfare
Hiroshima/Nagasaki
Holocaust
Nuclear war paranoia
Bomb shelters
Cold War
Propaganda
Vietnam War
Death/violence in American living rooms
Anti-war movements: counter-culture (hippies)

4. Influences Cont. Civil Rights Movement Women’s Lib. Movement
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
Growing Diversity
Realities of cultural diversity, both positive & negative attributes

5. Even more influences! Rise of Technology Space Race Moon landing
Rise of the “machine” = lack of humanity
Fast paced world
Creation of Science Fiction genre

6. Conventions/Beliefs
Like Modernists before them, experimented in writing
Varying points of view
Drug, alcohol use
Disregard for grammar conventions
Changeability
No right answers…

7. Conventions/Beliefs cont.
Sharply divided politics
Challenged authority, including organized religion, but far more sharply than their predecessors.
Dystopian Literature
Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
Handmaid’s Tale
Hunger Games
The Giver

8. Conventions Gallows Humor: Irony, playfulness, black humor
Intertextuality
Remember this one…???
Pastiche
Temporal Distortion: non-linear, jumping in time (sometimes even using time travel to do so…)
Magic Realism
The fantastic/surreal among grounded reality

9. Authors Joseph Heller Catch 22 J.D. Salinger
Nine Stories, Catcher in the Rye
Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse Five
Robert Lowell
Alan Ginsberg
Howl
Ken Kesey
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Thomas Pynchon
Maya Angelou
Alice Walker