postmodernism
Grand narrative rejection
Postmodernism is a broad intellectual and artistic movement that emerged in the mid-twentieth century as a reaction against modernist certainties.
It questions grand narratives, objective truth, and fixed meanings, emphasizing instead fragmentation, irony, and the blurring of boundaries between high and low culture.
In architecture, postmodernism rejected austere functionalism for playful, eclectic designs.
In philosophy and literary theory, it challenged the idea that texts have stable meanings.
The term often carries a dismissive edge when critics use it to describe work they find pretentiously obscure or relativistic: It's just postmodernism—style over substance. (Capitalized Postmodernism sometimes appears as a proper noun when referring to the movement as a distinct historical period.)
All-encompassing explanatory framework
- simulacraInsubstantial likenesses or copies
- hyperrealityRepresentations supplanting the genuine
- deconstructionAnalysis exposing self-contradiction
- discourseFormal communication on subjects
Baudrillard · Foucault · Derrida · relativism · pluralism · subjectivity · late capitalism · genealogy
Connections between written works
- metafictionLiterature aware of itself
- pasticheImitative artistic tribute
- fragmentationBreaking into smaller pieces
- unreliable narratorStoryteller whose credibility wavers
self-referential · Borges · magical realism · nonlinear · parody · irony · playfulness · collage
Unauthorized claiming or allocation
- BasquiatLate street-art painter
- simulacrumImitative stand-in for reality
- remixAltered version of recording
- multimediaCombined content formats
installation · pastiche · kitsch · neo-expressionism · collage · juxtaposition · irony · quotation
Context-dependent truth doctrine
- skepticismDisposition toward doubt
- cultural critiqueExamination of societal values
- ideologyStructured belief framework
- hegemonyDominant group's control
representation · identity politics · otherness · marginalization · canon · legitimation · power structures · social construction
Burial excavations in earth
- JohnsonPatronymic meaning son-of
- ornamentationDecorative additions to something
- historicismEra determines truth claims
- pluralismCoexistence of differing views
kitsch · irony · façade · contextualism · eclecticism · whimsy · color · symbolism
Grammatology's French author
- signifierMeaning-bearing form
- signifiedExpressed meaning symbolically
- traceMinute remnant or pursue
- disseminationWide distribution of information
decentering · phallogocentrism · presence · absence · margins
metanarrative
All-encompassing explanatory framework
- simulacraInsubstantial likenesses or copies
- hyperrealityRepresentations supplanting the genuine
- deconstructionAnalysis exposing self-contradiction
discourse · Baudrillard · Foucault · Derrida · relativism · pluralism · subjectivity · late capitalism · genealogy · contingency
intertextuality
Connections between written works
- metafictionLiterature aware of itself
- pasticheImitative artistic tribute
- fragmentationBreaking into smaller pieces
unreliable narrator · self-referential · Borges · magical realism · nonlinear · parody · irony · playfulness · collage · bricolage
appropriation
Unauthorized claiming or allocation
- BasquiatLate street-art painter
- simulacrumImitative stand-in for reality
- remixAltered version of recording
multimedia · installation · pastiche · kitsch · neo-expressionism · collage · juxtaposition · irony · quotation · mass culture
relativism
Context-dependent truth doctrine
- skepticismDisposition toward doubt
- cultural critiqueExamination of societal values
- ideologyStructured belief framework
hegemony · representation · identity politics · otherness · marginalization · canon · legitimation · power structures · social construction · nihilism
Graves
Burial excavations in earth
- JohnsonPatronymic meaning son-of
- ornamentationDecorative additions to something
- historicismEra determines truth claims
pluralism · kitsch · irony · façade · contextualism · eclecticism · whimsy · color · symbolism · duck
Derrida
Grammatology's French author
dissemination · decentering · phallogocentrism · presence · absence · margins
- artfine art, Renaissance, painters, masterpieces, paint
- art formspainting, drawing, sculpture, photography, music
- genresaction, comedy, detective fiction, fantasy, horror
- literaturebooks, book, fiction, poetry, stories
- American Architecturecolonial, Craftsman, bungalow, ranch house, Cape Cod
- art stylesimpressionism, surrealism, cubism, realism, pop art
postmodernismmodernism
Favoring contemporary approaches
Enlightenment · modernity · classicism · Renaissance humanism · Romanticism
postmodernismfoundationalism
Knowledge rests on basics
essentialism · objectivism · universalism · rationalism · positivism
postmodernismsincerity
Honest, unfeigned genuineness
earnestness · authenticity · naturalism · realism · neoclassicism