Essay on The Postmodernist Impulse and Sam Shepard

According to Hal Foster (1983: ix), postmodernism aims to deconstruct or rewrite modernism in order to open its closed systems. Although both movements draw out techniques that essentially challenge tradition, the sentiment and motivation behind the employment of these techniques differ in important ways. Fragmentation is an example of a feature which characterizes both modernism and postmodernism, but literary critics such as Peter Barry argue that the modernist employs fragmentation with a tone of lamentation and nostalgia

A worldwide movement encompassing all disciplines, postmodernism arose in response to the dominant idea of modernism, which is described as the social condition of living in an urban, fast-changing progressivist world governed by instrumental reason.

Postmodernism is a term which is highly contested in the sociological world, where it is used to indicate a significant detachment from modernism. It is easier to give the uses of the term; ‘to give a name to the present historical period, to name a specific style in arts and architecture and to name a point of rupture or disjuncture in epistemology’ (Buchanan, 2010). For this,

Postmodernism is a style of writing which is still used often today. It is a response to modernism because postmodernism questions the norm. Essentially, postmodernism use is being used because everything else has been taken, so by blending in certain creations together, you can make something new. In postmodernism, authors like Tim O’Brien, who wrote The Things They Carried and A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, both authors are telling the reader a story in the first person with stream of conscious, just like a modernist writer would do. However, the two authors, similarly, are unreliable at points in the books because they both change the meaning of their own true stories and admit to tricking the reader multiple

Before explaining postmodernism, modernism needs to explained some first. Modernism believes in the absolutes of things such as beauty art and music. There is only one set way to do these things. Music is things such as Mozart and Bach. There is a clear objective of linear thinking that is to be stuck to and anything

It's hard to locate it in History, because it's not clear exactly when postmodernism began. It is characterised by a pastiche of cultural styles and elements, but implies a deeper skepticism about order and progress. The term was first used in Architecture to describe the reaction against the Post war concrete tower blocks. More recently Postmodernism has become influential in areas of study such as politics, economics and sociology. Postmodernists say that there are many meanings to any social or cultural aspect of life and that there isn't any aspect of life where there's one single, objective truth or reality that absolutely everyone experiences.

Postmodernism is essentially a critique of modernism and encourages the questioning of breaking down socially defined aspects. Basically society is built on social constructs that are not actually real. There are many different structures that this could be inferring to as far as what society “believes” is capital “T” true. This can be in reference to gender, sex, and sexuality, as well as social class. What postmodernism does it essentially call out all these structures to show that these are not inherently true and as a society they have been created and enforced. Jean- Francois Lyotard was a big contributor in the postmodernism way of thinking as Storey writes “For Lyotard the postmodern condition is marked by crisis in the status of knowledge in Western societies.

Modernism is a movement that started in the early 1900’s, there are lots of new ideas used in modernism and it does not include values of older traditional literature. Some things that were questioned in modernist literature is what is the difference between wrong and right, what will our country's future be, what is truth, and what does it mean to be an American. In modernism writers oftentimes don’t give answers and make the reader draw their own conclusions. Writers of the time are also worried about social injustice and want a better world and society. Key elements of modernism include break from tradition, Individualism, and disillusionment.

That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such

Postmodernism is a reaction to the logic, simplification and objectiveness of modernism. It is an abandonment of convention and reevaluation of traditional institutions. Ideally, it focuses on specific local contexts as well as on

French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard once said, “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” Through his statement, he endeavored to associate a theory to the shifting concept of postmodernism; to synopsize different events, experiences, and phenomena in history through a universal appeal to truth. While his supposition, through equation with the poems of Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Olsen, or John Cage - does indeed seem to hold validity; to define postmodernism remains difficult. To define this era would be to violate the premise of the postmodernist that no absolute or definite terms, boundaries, or truths exist to do so. However, we can rest assured that all postmodernists do believe absolute

Post-Modernism can be described as a particular style of thought. It is a concept that correlates the emergence of new features and types of social life and economic order in a culture; often called modernization, post-industrial, consumer, media, or multinational

According to, , the postmodern movement is the deconstruction of modernism and previous art movements in order to allow for creativity and originality while not being restricted to rules and standards previously set by an artistic discipline’s predecessors. While this seems to be a rather vague concept in which a creative movement is constructed upon, there are traits that have been established that are considered common in what would classified as postmodern pieces.

Postmodernist against any balanced thinking as was claim in the book of" What Postmodernism Is" differences are met-not with contention, the opportunity to be prevail, and the desire that reason can win however with assertion, hostility, and a willingness

Postmodernism refers to a broad term used to explain movements in philosophy, art, music and critical theory. Postmodernism is viewed as a reaction to the pioneering modernist movement. In literature and art, postmodernism responds against classical ideas. With respect to post-structuralism and structuralism, there is a great difference between postmodernism