1. POSTMODERNISM POSTMODERNISM POSTMODERNISM POSTMODERNISM Introducing…
Everything is beautiful. Pop is everything.
–Andy Warhol
POSTMODERNISM
MARILYN MONROE
Andy Warhol (1962)
POSTMODERNISM

2. The Age of the Spectacle
Modernism:
The Age of Literacy
Postmodernism:
The Age of the Spectacle
The universal subject is alienation of the individual, which is caused by:
The multicultural subject is the voice of “the other,” which lends itself to:
Industrialization
Power is based in Capitalism, which is invincible!
Deindustrialization
Let’s go green!
Urbanization
Suburbanization
Nationalism/ Colonialism / Imperialism
Globalism/Decolonization
Consumerism
Global consumerism (the Internet)

3. There is no “reality, only interpretations of reality.”
It’s Pomo… You know, Post-modern… Weird for the sake of being weird.
Questions of truth and subjectivity first proposed in Modernism, gave rise to the belief in multiple truths and multiple subjectivities in Postmodernism.
There is no “reality, only interpretations of reality.”

4. What might some multiple interpretations be
What might some multiple interpretations be? Whose meaning is the right one?
DROWNING GIRL
Roy Lichtenstein (1963)

5. FLAG
Jasper Johns (1954)

6. 200 Campbell’s Soup Cans Brillo Box Andy Warhol (1962)

7. Thus, illusions of individuality appear to be more real than reality.
In Postmodernism . . .
Thus, illusions of individuality appear to be more real than reality.
. . .a sense of fragmentation and a decentered self lead to
multiple, conflicting identities.
hyper-reality, image saturation seem more powerful than the "real.”
REMEMBER THIS?
(HYPER)REALITY
“The Treachery of Images” (1929)
RENÉ MAGRITTE

8. “BINARIES & AMBIGUITIES” WITH SPOON BOY AND BANANA
Binaries of modernism (black vs. white) become AMBIGUITIES in postmodernism (GRAY).
PM suggests “the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture.”
–Frederic Jameson
DOWN WITH HIERARCHIES!
EVERYTHING IS AMBIGUOUS!

9. Modernism : ( Postmodernism : )
: A reaction to the horrors of WWI
Post WWII: A reaction to the horrors of WWII
Iconoclastic –
Modernism challenges tradition and the status quo
Parodistic –
Postmodernism appropriates and recycles for fun
Fascination with the new, the modern, the mechanical
Fascination with nostalgia. This fascination can be serious or playful. Welcome to the world of the memoir.
Focus on form and stylistic experimentation, such as stream of consciousness
Focus on playful and ironic self-conscious reflection (metafiction)
Political opposition of the avant garde to the status quo
Political appropriation of the mainstream -- high / low cultural boundaries blurred

10. THE Postmodern Approach to VANILLA COKE
NOSTALGIA – For those good old-fashioned ice cream shops when vanilla syrup would be added to soda
SIMULATION – Today’s kids will have only Vanilla Coke™ and not the original reference (the fountain soda; the coke with vanilla syrup).

11. Which is the “real” Atlantic City?
Disney’s “Atlantic City”
The Jersey Girl’s Atlantic City

12. The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently.––Umberto Eco,
Reflections on the Name of the Rose
We revisit the past with irony, but often with more longing than irony. We are ironic because of the longing. Irony numbs the longing and the despair of not being able to have what we cannot have or change what we cannot change.

13. R.L.
1961

14. Sincerity versus Irony –– The Postmodern Predicament?
Do we revisit the past with sincerity –– or do we view it in an ironic light?
Sincerity versus Irony –– The Postmodern Predicament?
MOVIE (TITANIC)
IRONIC REACTION: “Let’s dress up as the Titanic for Halloween.”
SINCERE REACTION: “That’s so sad.”

15. a challenge to official seriousness.
MODERNISMIs characterized by a seriousness of intention and middle-class earnestness.
POSTMODERNISM is
a challenge to official seriousness.
LOOK MICKEY
Roy Lichtenstein (1961)

16. Critic Frederic Jameson has proposed that postmodernism…has bequeathed us ‘a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles.’
CRYING GIRL
Roy Lichtenstein (1964)

17. CAMPBELL’S SOUP CAN
Andy Warhol (1964)

18. Postmodern texts emphasize unease and a sense of dislocation from contemporary society.
The literature may “revel in uncertainty.”
The literature may use multiple narrators to reinforce t he subjective view. This brings the reader inside , where he/she is free to make various interpretations.
The literature may incorporate references to popular culture, such as cartoons, film, pop music, brand names, logos, and fairy tales rather than make allusions to high art.

19. Postmodernist works reveal a penchant for boundless superficiality and random sensations combined with a benumbed stance of detached irony. Writers rely on a conglomeration of methods -- typically including bricolage, pastiche, kitsch, metafiction, and parody -- to convey the complex absurdity of contemporary life. They ignore the Modernist distinctions between high and low art, fiction and reality; instead, all elements and voices are equally compelling, fascinating, and true. This absence of hierarchical categories converges in the Postmodern lack of a grand narrative, which has traditionally been the grail formula of Modernist novels.
We will search for all these elements in
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

20. PARODY AND PASTICHE
PARODY – The imitative use of the words, style, attitude, tone and ideas of an author in such a way as to make them ridiculous. This is usually achieved by exaggerating certain traits, using more or less the same technique as the cartoon caricaturist. In fact, a kind of satirical mimicry.
PASTICHE – A patchwork of words, sentences or complete passages from various authors or one author. It is, therefore, a kind of imitation and, when intentional, may be a form of parody.
NOW WITH 79% MORE IRONY

21. kitsch (kch)
Sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious, bad taste, especially in the arts:
"When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch" (William H. Gass).

22. More Postmodernism Terms
Bricolage is something made or put together from whatever materials happen to be at hand, such as found poetry or art.
Metafiction is fiction writing that deals playfully with the nature of fiction, the techniques and conventions used in it, and the role of the author. Often the author will draw attention to the act of creating the writing. Dave Eggers does this in AHWOSG.

23. How is the postmodern model like the original?

24. JEFF KOONS
MICHAEL JACKSON AND BUBBLES (1988)

25. SINCERE OR IRONIC? Is Jeff Koons being SINCERE or IRONIC?
Is this PARODY or homage-PASTICHE?
Is he fascinated or disgusted by KITSCH?

26. USHERING IN BANALITY (1988)

27. CLOTHESPIN
Claes Oldenburg
(Philadelphia, 1976)

28. Postmodernism is full of contradictions
Postmodernism is full of contradictions. There also seems to be no foreseeable end to postmodernism. There is a new term emerging in some philosophical discussions, proclaiming that we are entering into a paramodern era, one that finds knowing by not-knowing.
Paramodern art seeks to “reassert qualities, such as decorative color and form, emotional stimulation and the sumptuous use of evocative materials”
“Art, Taking the Paramount Path.” Helen Harrison. The New York Times. June 21, 1981.

29. Leviathan Bo Bartlett Postmodern or Paramodern?