Postmodernism, Then

This material has been published in American Literature in Transition, 1990-2000 edited by Stephen J. Burn. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for redistribution , resale or use in derivative works.

Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, 2001

It seems easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism; perhaps that is due to some weakness in our imaginations. I have come to think that the word postmodern ought to be reserved for thoughts of this kind.

This preface, initially published in 2003, sketches out the evolution of literary and cultural studies at the turn of the twenty-first century. In particular, the argument examines the issue of the exhaustion and the supersession of postmodernism.

Social Text, 2016

If you were to think through the project of defining postmodernism today, following the basic framework in the 1984 essay or the 1991 book, which constitutive features would you emphasize? Are there aspects you emphasized thirty years ago that seem less relevant today, and have others emerged as more significant in recent decades? If there has been a shift, how do we account for it? Fredric Jameson: The first thing I would do is to separate these terms postmodernity and postmodernism, because people have often thought that my first description of it was a sort of aesthetic inventory of stylistic features. In part it was that, but I had understood it in terms of periodization and social structure. And now I realize that it would have been much clearer

Russian Postmodernism

N ow we can hardly doubt that the last third of the twentieth century will enter cultural history under the name of postmodernism. The beginning of the twenty first century reacted ambivalently to this heritage. Many concepts that postmodernism introduced into global culture are now undergoing revision in attempt to reappropriate what was lost or rejected during the previous thirty years. The practices of quotation, allusion, intertextuality, and the traits of irony and eclecticism are still current, as well as skepticism toward the universality of canons and hierarchies of all kinds. However, postmodernism, as it is perceived now, got stuck at the level of language games: it was obsessed with overcoding, subtexts, and metatextuality, and did not recognize anything outside this domain. By the early twenty-first century, this game continued by inertia alongside the new realities that challenged it: the Iraqi War, Chechnya, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. … All these events took place far away from the United States, however, and major theoreticians such as Jean Baudrillard still were inclined to interpret them as postmodernist phenomena, including the mass media's control over the world scene and the information industry's games. The limits of the game suddenly became starkly defined on September 11, 2001. The entire postmodernist era ended with deadly Preface to the Second Edition | xv Preface to the Second Edition | xvii Preface to the Second Edition | xxi Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover's introduction "'New Sectarianism' and the Pleasure Principle in Postmodern Russian Culture." The selected bibliography has been expanded and updated.

Postmodernism and Society, 1990

Many sociologists, cultural commentators, literary theorists and philosophers have been intrigued by the idea of postmodernity for some time now, and this interest is reflected in the considerable outpouring of writing on the topic which has appeared over the last year or two. There seems, however, to be scant agreement on how the crucial terms in these discussions are to be understood. 'Modernity' and 'postmodernity', 'modernism' and 'postmodernism' appear and reappear in philosophical, literary and other texts in what is at first sight a bewildering array of guises. Combined, especially in Britain, with a scepticism towards fashionableespecially French-debates as well as resistance to what are seen as trendy neologisms, particularly in the realm of culture and aesthetics, there is a danger that much of the debate about postmodernism will remain on the academic and cultural margins, the property of an avant-garde but held generally in deep suspicion and even derision by the rest. This collection is offered in the belief that the debate about postmodernism addresses issues that are actually of crucial significance to the humanities and the social sciences and, more

2019

Richard Devetak, Anthony Burke, Jim George (eds), An Introduction to International Relations (Cambridge University Press), 2012