What is Postmodernism?
Postmodernism began in the post-World War II era, roughly the 1950s. It took full
flight in the 1960s in the face of global social and political unrest. Postmodernism is
the period that comes after the modern period. It came about as a reaction to the
established modernist era, which itself was a reaction to the established tenets of the
nineteenth century and before. What sets Postmodernism apart from its predecessor
is the reaction of its practitioners to the rational, scientific, and historical aspects of
the modern age. For postmodernists, this took the guise of being self-conscious,
experimental, and ironic. The postmodernist is concerned with imprecision and
unreliability of language and with epistemology, the study of what knowledge is.
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Deconstruction
Deconstruction, the term, was created by Derrida, and it
defines the basic premise of Postmodernism. It means a
critique of the criteria of certainty, identity, and truth. Derrida
says that all communication is characterized by uncertainty
because there is no definitive link between the signifier (a
word) and the signified (the object to which the word refers).
Once a text is written it ceases to have a meaning until a reader
reads it.
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For Derrida, there is nothing but the text and that it
is not possible to construe a meaning for a text
using a reference to anything outside the text. The
text has many internal meanings that are in conflict
with themselves (called reflexivity or self-
referential) and as a result there is no solid and
guaranteed meaning to a text. Because he doubts
the ability of language to convey any absolute
meaning, there results an impossibility of language
to establish a ‘‘transcendental universal’’ or a
universal truth.
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Disintegration
One of the main outgrowths of Postmodernism is the
disintegration of concepts that used to be taken for
granted and assumed to be stable. These include the
nature of language, the idea of knowledge, and the
notion of a universal truth. The application of
deconstruction to the understanding of language itself
results in disintegration of that very language. Even
these words are not stable in the sense that they
cannot convey an unalterable message.
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The consequence of this is that once language is destabilized the resultant
knowledge that comes from that language is no longer a stable product. The end
result therefore is that there can be no universal truths upon which to base an
understanding or a social construct. In literary works, authors often disrupt expected
time lines or change points of view and speakers in ways that disrupt and cause
disintegration in the very literature they are writing.
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Cultural Studies
One major impact of Postmodernism on the structure of college and university
courses is the introduction of multiculturalism and cultural studies programs. These
are sometimes directly related to specific areas on the planet (Far Eastern studies,
South American studies, or conglomerate areas such as Pan-African studies) and
sometimes to specific-focus groups (Gay/Lesbian studies, Women’s studies,
Chicano studies). Often these are not limited by political concerns and boundaries
but are economically and socially organized, a major concern expressed in the
writings of Jameson, Eagleton, and other Marxist critics.
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Multiculturalism
Another aspect of multiculturalism is combining specific interest areas into one area
of study. This aspect of Postmodernism broadens the experiences of college students
through the study of literature and history of peoples from other parts of the world.
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