A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, FictionFirst published in 1988. Postmodernism is a word much used and misused in a variety of disciplines, including literature, visual arts, film, architecture, literary theory, history, and philosophy. A Poetics of Postmodernism is neither a defense nor a denunciation of the postmodern. It continues the project of Hutcheon's Narcissistic Narrative and A Theory of Parody in studying formal self-consciousness in art, but adds to this both a historical and ideological dimension. Modelled on postmodern architecture, postmodernism is the name given here to current cultural practices characterized by major paradoxes of form and of ideology. The poetics of postmodernism offered here is drawn from these contradictions, as seen in the intersecting concerns of both contemporary theory and cultural practice. |
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actual aesthetic American architecture argued artists asserts assumptions attempt authority awareness become called challenge claim concept concern construct contemporary context continuity contradictions contradictory conventions course critical culture defined definition discourse dominant enunciation ex-centric example exist experience fact feminist fiction forces formal historiographic metafiction human humanist ideological implication important individual interpretation intertextual ironic issues Jameson kind knowledge language limits literary literature male meaning modernist narrative narrator nature notion novel object offers once opposition paradoxical parody particular past perhaps political position possible postmodern postmodernist practice present problematic production question radical reader reading reality reference relation representation seen sense separation share situation social society specific structure suggests textual theoretical theory things traditional truth universal values White women writing