Postmodernism

+Course overview, logistics, details

 Ok, I lied.
It’s logistics first
• Wednesdays 14:00
• In-person sessions with a chance of Zoom as per life happening (mainly
around public holidays)
 What’s the point of this course?
• A) To deepen the understanding of one of the most versatile literary
movements
• B) To learn to analyse literature based on both textual and contextual cues
• C) To solidify key concepts and ideas that brought about not just great
books but also social change
• D) To ditch the re-telling in essays
• E) Because we’re living in it…sorta
Postmodern Theory: What to Expect?

Murder…
• …of metanarratives, conventional reality, obligatory symbolism, and, yes,
authors
 Exam: Last class session
• It will be on the topics discussed in class and the general application of
theory
 House Order
• eating and drinking
• Cellphones
• Tardiness
• Doctor’s appointments
• The “what’s next” slide
 A word of advice on ChatGPT
• Do not use it – not for me, but for you
 So, what is Postmodernism?
a) A reaction to Modernism
b) A playful literary movement
c) Critique of society
d) Philosophical stance on knowledge
e) A big and loveable mess?
 Postmodernism as a reaction to Modernism

• Dismisses the utopian vision of society and human nature

• Negates the notion of objective reality and reason
• Based on skepticism and suspicion
• Questions traditions – history as continuous and discontinuous – traditions
revised
• Openly challenges the elitism of Modernism
 Compare the two:
• ...and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I
put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red
yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as
well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes
and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first
I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel
my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said
yes I will Yes.
 (Speaking of bombs)
The aesthetic of the absurd
• Reaction to the decline of the sense of what makes us human

• Interplay of popular culture, silence, discontinuation of various narratives

both in form and content
 A bit of a conceptual problem
• “indetermanence, which designates two central, constitutive tendencies in
postmodernism: one of indeterminacy, the other of immanence. The
two tendencies are not dialectical; for they are not exactly antithetical; nor
do they lead to a synthesis. Each contains its own contradictions, and
alludes to elements of the other. Their interplay suggests the action of a
“polylectic,” pervading postmodernism.” (Hassan 3)
• Postmodernism is not historically stable (has been around since 1930s)
• No set range of criteria what makes postmodernism – characteristics vary
• Ongoing change inherent to the concept
• Always in touch with the social and cultural context
 Common postmodern traits
• Text/intertext • Hybridity
• Process/performance/happening • Nonlinear narration
• Misreading • Fabulation
• Playfulness • Formal mixing
• Floating signifiers • Deconstruction
• Metafiction • Media saturation
• Ambiguity
• Unreliable narration
 Deconstruction
• A new-age response to structuralist thought (P.S. What do we know about
structuralism?)
• Literary structuralism focuses on conditions that allow the creation of
meaning
• Form is more important than meaning (ahem, hello Russian Formalists)
• It analyses literature based on comparing and contrasting elements within
a particular system
• System as a firm structure
 Problem? Dog.
• Post-structuralism denies the stability of structure and systems
• It claims that systems of meaning are a) culturally produced, and b)
always changing
• E.g., black and white as symbols of good and evil
 Deconstruction takes it a step further
• Not only are systems always changing, but they can be completely
destabilized
• Undermining binary structures, questioning how they are created and
upheld in the text
• Ambiguity and uncertainty
• Impossible to find one stable meaning
• P.S. the name is Jacques Derrida
 In practice
• différance and difference – ambiguity of spoken word, i.e., changes
depending on a particular context
• Questioning and highlighting injustice in binary systems – e.g., the gender
debate
• Dismantling grand narratives – e.g., the Bible
• In Postmodernism – subverting common tropes, genre deconstruction,
humorous tampering etc.
 Check this out
• ...this particular hero was a heroine. A redheaded one.

• What do you expect to come after this?

• *hint* men writing women
• Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena
the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a
heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's
Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently
quite sensibly dressed in light chainmail, soft boots and a short sword. All
right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. (The Light Fantastic,
Terry Pratchett)
 Conclusion: read Terry Pratchett
• …and the assigned text for next week’s class