1. Postmodernism
English 230B

2. Defining Postmodernism
Literally, anything after (post) the Modern period, which ended around 1945.
1945-present: post-Modern
“Extreme” Modernism
-OR-
Rejection of Modernism

3. Historical Context World War II Capitalism Technology Ends 1945
Holocaust
6 million Jews killed
Capitalism
Consumer culture and commodification
Replication and reproduction
Technology
Mass media (t.v., commercials and advertisements)
Digital age (computers)

4. The Center Cannot Hold
This approach concerns itself with the ways and places where systems, frameworks, definitions, and certainties break down. Postmodernism maintains that frameworks and systems are merely fictitious constructs and that they cannot be trusted to develop meaning or to give order. In fact, the very act of seeking order or a singular Truth (with a capital T) is absurd because there exists no unified truth. --Adapted from The OWL at Purdue

5. Truth? Reality? Whose truth is THE truth?
Roshamon (1955): many people witness the same rape/murder but their “versions” of the event differ
Gone Girl, The Affair: same story told from different points of view
Is there a real reality? Is one version of the truth the true truth?
Postmodernism: We construct our own reality. There is no central, objective reality to seek out.

6. Challenges Binaries Male vs. female (gender)
Whereas Modernists challenge gender roles, Postmodernists challenge the whole concept of gender.
Gender as social construct
Judith Butler– performativity of gender
Straight vs. gay (sexuality)
Black vs. white (race)

7. Breakdown of High vs. Low Art
Andy Warhol
T.V., film and digital media as art

8. Intertextuality and Pastiche
Challenges the concept that a work of literature has to be one thing
Multiple genres in one text
Nabokov's Lolita: detective fiction, memoir, romance, satire, fairy tale, realism, tragedy, and psychological case study. 
Vignettes
Individual scenes that seem to have no real connection to the other events in the story—patchwork
Pulp Fiction

9. Metafiction and Parody
Author may break the “fourth wall” and speak directly to the reader
Use of footnotes or explanatory sections within a piece of fiction
A book about a writer writing a book
A book within a book
The characters express awareness of what an archetypal character is supposed to do
The Scream movies—characters in a horror movie discuss what is supposed to happen to characters in a horror movie

10. Modernism vs. Postmodernism
Non-linear structure
Usually concludes in a way that ties up loose ends
Seek to find order amidst the chaos
Nostalgia for the past, the “good old days”
Disregards the constraints of “time“
May conclude with more questions than answers
Realize there is no order and celebrate the chaos
Realize that the idealized past we long for NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED

11. Paranoia and Dystopian Fiction
Capitalism + technology = fear that we are being watched and we are not in control
Utopia = a perfect world
Dystopia = a terrible world, usually set in the future, usually dominated by a totalitarian govt. and largely controlled by technology
1984, A Brave New World, The Matrix, Minority Report, Hunger Games

12. Overall Questions:
How is language thrown into freeplay or questioned in the work?
How does the work undermine or contradict generally accepted truths?
How does the author (or a character) omit, change, or reconstruct memory and identity?
How does a work fulfill or move outside the established conventions of its genre?
How does the work deal with the separation (or lack thereof) between writer, work, and reader?