1. POSTMODERNISM

2. a response to the elitist and bourgeois culture of modernism
post-structuralism (Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, 1966)
a response to Humanism in which Man is considered to be an unproblematic hypothesized substitute of God, the embodiment of stability
post-colonialism (pluralism, heteroglossia, subjectivity)

3. Postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity , and interconnectedness or interreferentiality. (Jacques Derrida’s theory of deconstruction)

4. Jacques Derrida ( )

5. Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (essay, 1966)
The centre cannot hold

6. A Derrida History of Philosophy
Early Christian era to eighteenth century:
a single god posited as the centre and cause of things
Eighteenth century/ Enlightenment to late nineteenth century:
God is kicked out of the centre, and human thought (rationality) posited as the centre and cause of all things
Late nineteenth century – 1966:
rationality is booted out of the centre, and the unconscious, or irrationality, or desire, posited as the centre and cause of all things
1966:
Derrida writes Structure, Sign, and Play and deconstructs the idea of a centre

7. Postmodernism is characterized by:

8. rejection of all kinds of organizational hierarchy (e. g
rejection of all kinds of organizational hierarchy (e.g. the conceptual oppositions we employ to do this organization such as speech vs. writing, soul vs. body, literal vs. metaphorical, natural vs. cultural, masculine vs. feminine - are wrong or too rigidly fixed)

9. breaking away from an allegiance to any “given” systems and believing that the way we see the world can and should be changed

10. believing that the reader/listener/spectator involved in the articulation or interpretation of the play of language should act independently of any supposed intention of the author - the text is to be constructed by the reader. (Narcissus and Echo by Fred Chappell)  

11. Narcissus and Echo

12. Narcissus by Caravaggio (circa 1597-1599)

13. Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) by Salvador Dali

14. resisting the master narrative of modernism, the authority of high art (postmodernists seem to be unconcerned by the relationship between the formerly “high” and “low” genres)

15. Untitled (1981) by Barbara Kruger

16. You are not yourself by Barbara Kruger

17. Your body is a battleground by Barbara Kruger

18. Who is free to choose by Barbara Kruger

19. I am your reservoir of poses by Barbara Kruger

20. Your comfort is my silence by Barbara Kruger

21. I shop therefore I am by Barbara Kruger

22. Skin (2003) by Barbara Kruger

23. Death of a Poet, 1989 acrylic on canvas by Robert Colescott

24. Oh! Byzantium! Oh! by Robert Colescott

25. Fool’s House (1962) by Jasper Johns

26. Numbers by Jasper Johns

27. The postmodern novel

28. creates all sorts of confusions between fact and fiction (Brian McHale argues that the “dominant” mode of postmodernist fiction involves an ontological uncertainty about the contradictory nature of the world projected by the text

29. includes the dramatis personae that may wander into the text from history or from other fictions (intertextuality)

30. mixes historical and fictional material and thereby implies or states a postmodernist critique of the realist norms for the relationship of fiction to history

31. parodies the traditional approaches to writing

32. The postmodern novel doesn’t try to create a sustained realist illusion: it displays itself as open to all those illusory tricks of stereotype and narrative manipulation, and of multiple interpretation in all its contradiction and inconsistency, which are central to postmodernist thought.

33. Postmodernist novels are seen as:

34. incredulous towards “metanarratives”

35. sensitive to difference

36. taking into account the heterogeneity of systems (cultural hybridity) through which knowledge is validated

37. Online sources to consult:
How to recognize postmodernism / parts 1 and 2:
What is modernism?
Deconstruction and Derrida / parts 1 and 2:
Derrida's definition of deconstruction / in French / English subtitles:
Noam Chomsky on creativity and subjectivity and vs. Michel Foucault:

38. Secondary reading
Butler, Christopher. Postmodernism A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, Print