Download to read offline
Introduction to 3 types of pomo
- 1. Lesson Objective: to understandthe 3 approaches to postmodernism • to understand the difference between modernism and postmodernism • to know the basic theories of the postmodern •
- 2. What is postmodernism? You have 10 minutes to research the term postmodernism. Make a note of all definitions you find, ready to feedback to the class.
- 3. Postmodernism is anotoriously difficult concept to define. There are 3 approaches: Historical Stylistic Theoretical
- 4. Historical Postmodernism is areaction to modernism. Therefore to understand postmodernism from a historical point of view, we need to first understand modernism. So …
- 5. What is modernism? Experimenting with representations of reality Early part of the 20th century Value judgments (e.g. High culture= good, low culture = bad) A lot of what is generally accepted as ‘the norm’
- 6. Think…architecture The simplification of form and theelimination of ornament/decorativ e
- 7. TV Our 'window on theworld' representation of people, places, events
- 8.
- 9. So is that’smodernism, what is postmodernism? Think…
- 10. architecture… playing with the ideaof conventions of buildings – making us think about how it is constructed
- 11. TV Reality & Media representationshave merged, become confused – are these 'Real' people or actors?
- 12. Alternative models insociety e.g. family
- 13. So how canwe define postmodernism? Subject of postmodern media texts: Postmodern texts embody scepticism towards the ideas and ideals of the modern era, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason certainty, personal identity and grand narratives (more on this later) Style of postmodern media texts: Postmodernism takes pleasure in playing with convention, pointing out nature of how everything is a construction.
- 14. Where did itdevelop? Modernism believed that the lives of people would improve thanks to science and a world based on logic. It was a time of optimism and carried over from Victorian Era, through the Edwardian and right up to 1914…
- 15. The turning point… Theterrible carnage of the First World War sowed seeds of doubt as to whether the world was becoming a better place. The fact that science was turned to creating weapons of mass destruction and killing on an industrial scale as a trademark of the war, a wave of pessimism swept across Europe.
- 16. The birth ofpost-modernism This idea of a loss in the goodness of people and a suspicion of science and a world of logic and order was compounded by two main events of the Second World War…
- 17. The Holocaust The droppingof Atomic bombs on Japanese cities.
- 18. The birth ofpost-modernism These events brought about the movement and theories which are loosely titled post-modernism and post-modernist. By 1968 these ideas reached fruition.
- 19. Some distinctions… Modernists believethat people were capable of original thought. Post-modernists that the majority of the world basis its views on what is presented to them through the media – this is called “hyper-reality” – a reality mediated through media. Modernists believed that culture bears a universal truth or meaning. Post=modernists believe that cultures are open to many different interpretations.
- 20. Theoretical Approach Main theorists: Lyotard Baudrillard Jameson These 3 theorists offer interpretations of postmodernism which will help us in considering postmodern media.
- 21. 10 mins toresearch theorists Find out what postmodern theories these theorists came up with.
- 22. Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) Rejectionof ‘grand or meta-narratives’ These are large-scale theories and philosophies of the world, such as the progress of history, the knowability of everything by science, and the possibility of absolute freedom. Therefore, all ‘grand narratives’ should be viewed with suspicion. The truth therefore needs to be ‘deconstructed’ so that we can challenge dominant ideas that people claim as truth.
- 23. Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) Thereis no longer a distinction between reality and its representing image, or simulacrum. Hyperreality – there is only surface meaning; there is no longer any original thing for the sign to represent; the sign is the meaning.
- 24. Frederic Jameson (b.1934) Historical viewpoint – postmodernism is a development of modernism. Postmodernist works are often characterized by lack of depth, which has been replaced by a surfeit of surface. Jameson catalogs key features of postmodern culture, as self-referentiality, irony, pastiche, and parody. Jameson refers to this cultural recycling as historicism— the random cannibalization of various past styles – erasing historical depth.
- 25. Stylistic Approach Postmodernismcomprises of a set of core ideas and key concepts that work collaboratively to shape it. The more of these ideas and key concepts it embellishes, the more of a post-modern text it becomes; these are largely derived from the above theorists.
- 26. Key concepts genericblurring eclecticism intertextuality and death of representation bricolage playfulness e.g. parody and pastiche hyperreality hyperconciousness uncertainty and the loss of context
- 27. Some definitions. Hyperreality -a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. A parody; also called send-up , spoof or lampoon), in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or make fun at an original work. A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre that is a "hodge-podge" or an imitation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyfcOriVKBM
- 28. So why ispost-modern useful in analysis? A s part of your film and TV analysis a consideration of whether a text is post-modern and in what sense is fundamental and will gain marks. To consider whether a text is ‘postmodern’ or not we will largely rely on a stylistic approach, which themselves are a product of historical and theoretical approaches. We will also keep the other approaches in mind and look at how a postmodern viewpoint, from either a historical or theoretical point of view affects the way in which the audience and the industry produce and consume the media.
- 29. From what youhave learnt today, which texts do you think could be described as ‘postmodern’?