- "Skepticism toward the 'grand narratives' of modernism; rejection of epistemic (scientific) certainty or the stability of meaning; and sensitivity to the role of ideology in maintaining political power."
A theoretical perspective that challenges the idea of a single, objective truth and emphasizes the importance of individual experience and subjectivity.
Modernity: Postmodernism is a reaction against modernity, so it is important to understand modernity and how it shaped the world we live in today.
Grand Narratives: The idea of grand narratives is central to postmodernism. It is the belief that there are overarching stories, such as progress, that explain the world we live in.
Fragmentation: Postmodernism emphasizes fragmentation, breaking down grand narratives into smaller, more localized stories.
Deconstruction: This is a critical method used by postmodernists to analyze the way language is used in society, and to expose the underlying power structures that exist within it.
Post-structuralism: This is an umbrella term for a range of theories that critique the idea of the fixed meaning of texts, language, and culture.
Identity formation: Postmodernism challenges the idea of a fixed, stable self, and emphasizes the importance of social and historical context in shaping identity.
Consumer culture: Postmodernism suggests that consumers are actively involved in the creation of culture, rather than being passive recipients of it.
Globalization: Postmodernism has been used to analyze the effects of globalization on culture, society, and identity.
Postmodern art: Many postmodern theorists are interested in challenging traditional notions of art and aesthetics.
The death of metanarratives: This is the idea that grand narratives are no longer viable, and that the world is now so complex and fragmented that it is impossible to create a single, overarching explanation for it.
Power and knowledge: A central concern of postmodernism is the relationship between power and knowledge, and how knowledge is used to maintain social hierarchies.
Structuralism: This is a theory that emphasizes the importance of the underlying structures of society, such as language, in shaping our understanding of the world.
Postmodern feminism: This is a branch of feminism that seeks to challenge traditional notions of gender identity and sexuality, and to highlight the ways in which gender is socially constructed.
Cultural studies: Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that is concerned with the study of culture and society. It has been heavily influenced by postmodernism.
Postmodern architecture: Many architects and designers have been influenced by postmodernism, and have used its ideas to challenge traditional notions of architectural design.
Deleuze and Guattari: These philosophers are known for their work on postmodernism and its relationship to capitalism and power.
Lyotard: Jean-Francois Lyotard is one of the key figures in postmodern theory, and is known for his work on the fragmentation of knowledge in the postmodern world.
Foucault: Michel Foucault is another important postmodern thinker who has written extensively about power, knowledge, and social control.
Baudrillard: French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard is known for his work on the relationship between reality and simulation in the postmodern world.
Derrida: Jacques Derrida is a key figure in the development of deconstruction, and has had a major influence on postmodern theory.
Deconstructionism: Emphasizes the fragmentation of language and ideology, and how language constructs reality rather than reflects it.
Cultural Postmodernism: Emphasizes the significance of cultural objects, symbols and practices. The importance of cultural objects is seen to be more important than the society in which it exists.
Structural Postmodernism: Argues that knowledge is not objective, but rather is embedded in the practices and institutions that produce it, and is informed by the interests of those who produce it.
Postmodern Feminism: Creates new feminist theories that transcend modernist thinking.
Postmodern Marxism: Interprets matters from a Marxist perspective, but views Marxism as simply being one ideology among many within the cultural and intellectual history of the world.
Postmodern Constructivism: Focuses on knowledge that is constructed rather than found, and holds that knowledge is always plural and contingent.
Postmodern Realism: Aims to reclaim a sense of reality that has been lost in the postmodern condition, and argues that reality can still be identified and articulated.
- "Claims to objectivity are dismissed as naïve realism, with attention drawn to the conditional nature of knowledge claims within particular historical, political, and cultural discourses."
- "Self-referentiality, epistemological relativism, moral relativism, pluralism, irony, irreverence, and eclecticism."
- "It rejects the 'universal validity' of binary oppositions, stable identity, hierarchy, and categorization."
- "Initially emerging from a mode of literary criticism, postmodernism developed in the mid-twentieth century as a rejection of modernism."
- "Postmodernism is associated with the disciplines deconstruction and post-structuralism."
- "Postmodernism has been observed across many disciplines."
- "Various authors have criticized postmodernism as promoting obscurantism, as abandoning Enlightenment, rationalism and scientific rigor, and as adding nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge."
- "Rejection of epistemic (scientific) certainty or the stability of meaning."
- "Sensitivity to the role of ideology in maintaining political power."
- "Claims to objectivity."
- "Moral relativism."
- "Stable identity."
- "In the mid-twentieth century."
- "The 'grand narratives' of modernism."
- "The stability of knowledge claims within particular historical, political, and cultural discourses."
- "Irony and irreverence."
- "Categorization."
- "Promoting obscurantism."
- "Hierarchy."