Tag: postmodernism

A note on using the term Post Modern:

– after modernism (subsumes, assumes, extends the modern or tendencies already present in modernism, not necessarily in strict chronological succession) 


– contra modernism (subverting, resisting, opposing, or countering features of modernism) 


– equivalent to “late capitalism” (post-industrial, consumerist, and multi- and trans-national capitalism) 


– the historical era following the modern (an historical time-period marker) 


– artistic and stylistic ecclecticism (hybridization of forms and genres, mixing styles of different cultures or time periods, de- and re-contextualizing styles in architecture, visual arts, literature) 


– “global village” phenomena: globalization of cultures, races, images, capital, products (“information age” redefinition of nation-state identities, which were the foundation of the modern era; dissemination of images and information across national boundaries, a sense of erosion or breakdown of national, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities; a sense of a global mixing of cultures on a scale unknown to pre-information era societies)

The features in the table below are only tendencies, not absolutes. In fact, the tendency to see things in seemingly obvious, binary, contrasting categories is usually associated with modernism. The tendency to dissolve binary categories and expose their arbitrary cultural co-dependency is associated with postmodernism. Continue reading “Moderne, Postmoderne… kom ud af kredsløb!”