BA Hons student need help
Margaret Simms
Thanks
Dougie
Garry Knight
ma...@simms29.fsnet.co.uk says...
>Could any body please give me the definition of post-modernism
From the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary CD-ROM:
"post-modern
Later than what is 'modern' in literature, architecture, etc.; spec. of,
pertaining to, or designating a movement reacting against modernism esp.
by self-consciously drawing attention to earlier styles and conventions.
post-modernism n. a movement in literature, architecture, etc.,
constituting a reaction against modernism, esp. by self-conscious use of
earlier styles and conventions."
From the Brockhampton Dictionary of Ideas:
"Post-Modernism
late 20th century movement in architecture and the arts that rejects the
preoccupation of Modernism with purity of form and technique. Post-
Modern designers and architects use an amalgam of style elements from
the past, such as the Classical and the Baroque, and apply them in a
witty and parodic way that emphasizes surface rather than depth. The
implication is that in an age of mass media and multiculturalism,
clarity and coherence of meaning are no longer possible. This collapse
of progress and signification is seen by some cultural critics, for
instance Jean Baudrillard and Jean-Francois Lyotard, as symptomatic of
society as a whole."
The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought gives a much longer definition
that effectively says the same as the Brockhampton Dictionary. Part of
it runs thus: "Hence post-modernism is often associated with a revolt
against authority and signification, and a tendency towards pastiche,
parody, quotation, self-referentiality, and eclecticism".
You might get a more comprehensive (though perhaps less comprehensible)
answer in alt.postmodern, alt.architecture, or alt.philosophy.
--
Garry Knight
garry...@bigfoot.com