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What is postmodern literature?
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Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues.
Mar 31, 2016 · Postmodernism understands that grand narratives hide, silence and negate contradictions, instabilities and differences inherent in any social system. Postmodernism favours “mini-narratives,” stories that explain small practices and local events, without pretending universality and finality.
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- Postmodernism and modern philosophy
Postmodernism is a late 20th-century movement in philosophy and literary theory that generally questions the basic assumptions of Western philosophy in the modern period (roughly, the 17th century through the 19th century).
Western philosophy: Modern philosophy
Read more about modern philosophy.
What are some general characteristics of postmodernism?
Postmodern philosophy is characterized by broad skepticism or relativism and a general suspicion of reason. It also broadly asserts that Western intellectual and cultural norms and values are a product of, or are in some sense influenced by, the ideology of dominant or elite groups and at least indirectly serve their interests.
What do postmodernists believe?
Postmodernism is largely a reaction against the intellectual assumptions and values of the modern period in the history of Western philosophy (roughly, the 17th through the 19th century). Indeed, many of the doctrines characteristically associated with postmodernism can fairly be described as the straightforward denial of general philosophical viewpoints that were taken for granted during the 18th-century Enlightenment, though they were not unique to that period. The most important of these viewpoints are the following.
1. There is an objective natural reality, a reality whose existence and properties are logically independent of human beings—of their minds, their societies, their social practices, or their investigative techniques. Postmodernists dismiss this idea as a kind of naive realism. Such reality as there is, according to postmodernists, is a conceptual construct, an artifact of scientific practice and language. This point also applies to the investigation of past events by historians and to the description of social institutions, structures, or practices by social scientists.
2. The descriptive and explanatory statements of scientists and historians can, in principle, be objectively true or false. The postmodern denial of this viewpoint—which follows from the rejection of an objective natural reality—is sometimes expressed by saying that there is no such thing as Truth.
3. Through the use of reason and logic, and with the more specialized tools provided by science and technology, human beings are likely to change themselves and their societies for the better. It is reasonable to expect that future societies will be more humane, more just, more enlightened, and more prosperous than they are now. Postmodernists deny this Enlightenment faith in science and technology as instruments of human progress. Indeed, many postmodernists hold that the misguided (or unguided) pursuit of scientific and technological knowledge led to the development of technologies for killing on a massive scale in World War II. Some go so far as to say that science and technology—and even reason and logic—are inherently destructive and oppressive, because they have been used by evil people, especially during the 20th century, to destroy and oppress others.
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Mar 12, 2023 · Postmodernism is a movement that emerged in the late twentieth century, characterised by suspicion of a universal ‘truth’, which had dominated Western philosophy since the 17th and 18th centuries. Postmodernism moves away from modernism’s utopian ideals.
Postmodern literary theory is characterised by the critique of modernity and a digression from modernist aesthetic and literary style. Postmodernist fiction rejects the idea of the absolute and embraces chaos, disorder, and fragmentation of reality.
Aug 28, 2019 · A clear and accessible introduction to postmodernism that, apart from architecture, literature, and the arts, also discusses the postmodern impact on popular culture, cultural theory, the social sciences, and philosophy.
Postmodernism is a literary movement that began as a reaction to World War II. The poets, authors, artists, scholars, and critics of this movement are known for their interest in redefining literature and its purpose.
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