Postmodernism

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Representative Authors

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Donald Barthelme (1931–1989)

Donald Barthelme, Jr. was born on April 7, 1931, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1949, he began studying journalism at the University of Houston and joined the editorial team of the Daily Cougar. After serving in the U.S. Army, he returned to Houston and worked for various newspapers. In 1962, he moved to New York, where his articles and stories were published in the New Yorker magazine. Throughout his career, he received numerous accolades, such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Award, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Zabel Award, the Rea Short Story Award, and the Texas Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Barthelme passed away from throat cancer on July 23, 1989, at fifty-eight.

Barthelme is recognized as an avant-garde or postmodernist writer who prioritizes language over plot and character development. He is celebrated for his work as a short story writer, novelist, editor, journalist, and educator. Some of his notable publications include: Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964), City Life (1970), Sixty Stories (1981), and The King (1990).

Jacques Derrida (1930–)

Jacques Derrida was born on July 15, 1930, in El Biar, Algeria. He obtained both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and pursued further graduate studies at Harvard University between 1956 and 1957. Derrida has taught at several prestigious institutions worldwide, including the University of Paris, Sorbonne, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of California at Irvine, Cornell University, and the City University of New York.

Beginning in the 1960s, Derrida's work brought significant changes to literary criticism. In 1962, he introduced the foundational concepts of deconstruction in an extensive introduction to his French translation of German philosopher Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry. The comprehensive methodology of deconstruction is detailed in his challenging masterwork, Of Grammatology, published in English in 1967. This work unveiled the complex interplay of meanings within contemporary texts and highlighted the implicit assumptions that shape modern social thought.

Terry Eagleton (1943–)

Terence Eagleton was born on February 22, 1943, in Salford, England. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964, and later received his Ph.D. from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1968. Eagleton has taught at both Cambridge and Oxford and has served as a judge for poetry and literature competitions.

As a leading figure in Marxist criticism, Eagleton focuses on the ideologies present in literature, exploring how Marxism helps uncover these ideologies. His early works include: Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Bröntes (1975), Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976), and Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory (1976), among others. His later works include: Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), The Function of Criticism: From the Spectator to Poststructuralism (1984), and The Ideology of the Aesthetics (1990). In Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976), he discusses the author as a producer and examines the connections between literature and history, form and content, and the writer's commitment. Eagleton is a prominent advocate for integrating social and historical contexts into literary criticism.

Michel Foucault (1926–1984)

Michel Foucault, born on October 15, 1926, in Poitiers, France, earned a diploma from the École Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne, University of Paris, in 1952. He taught philosophy and French literature at several universities, including Lille, Uppsala, Warsaw, Hamburg, Clermont-Ferrand, São Paulo, and the University of Tunis between 1960 and 1968. From 1968 to 1970, Foucault was a professor at the University of Paris, Vincennes. From 1970 until his passing in 1984, he held the position of Chair in the History of Systems of Thought at the Collège...

(This entire section contains 1648 words.)

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de France. His most renowned works includeThe History of Sexuality (1976), The Use of Pleasure (1985), and The Care of the Self (1987).

Foucault employed what he termed the archaeological method in his research, aiming to uncover and present scholarly details from the past that reveal the "archaeological" form or forms common to all intellectual activities. He later transitioned from this archaeological focus to a genealogical approach, exploring how power structures influence and redefine the boundaries of "truth." His exploration of the interplay between power and knowledge stands as his most significant achievement.

Foucault passed away from a neurological disorder on June 25, 1984, in Paris, France.

Fredric Jameson (1934–)

Born on April 14, 1934, in Cleveland, Ohio, Fredric Jameson attended Haverford College and Yale University, earning a Master of Fine Arts in 1956 and a Ph.D. in 1959. He taught at Harvard University, the University of California, San Diego, Yale University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Duke University. His accolades include a Rotary Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Humanities Institute Grant, and the William Riley Parker Prize.

Jameson is a prominent advocate of Marxism in the United States. In his work Postmodernism; or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, he critiques how contemporary culture is formed. His 1983 article, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society,” lays the foundation for much of his Marxist criticism.

Julia Kristeva (1941–)

Julia Kristeva was born in Silven, Bulgaria, on June 24, 1941. Her education began in French schools in Bulgaria, where she earned her diploma from the Université de Sofia, and concluded in 1973 at the University of Paris VII, where she received her Ph.D. She has taught at various universities and has established a private psychoanalytic practice in Paris. She has been honored with the titles Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite.

She is celebrated as an author, educator, linguist, psychoanalyst, and literary theorist and is regarded as one of the most significant thinkers of contemporary France. Kristeva's work is founded on two aspects of linguistic function: the semiotic, which communicates objective meaning, and the symbolic, which encompasses the rhythmic and irrational facets of meaning. The fusion of these elements is what she refers to as "poetic language." These principles also underpin postmodern criticism. Many have embraced her as a feminist writer due to her discourse on social issues, yet Kristeva's connection to feminism remains ambivalent. Two of her most notable works are Desire in Language, A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art (published in 1969, translated in 1980) and New Maladies of the Soul (published in 1993, translated in 1995), a collection of essays. She has also penned several novels.

Toni Morrison (1931–)

Toni Morrison, originally named Chloe Anthony Wofford, was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, into a black working-class family. She pursued humanities in college, earning her Bachelor of Arts in 1953 from Howard University, a prestigious black institution, and her Master’s degree from Cornell University in 1955. Morrison married Harold Morrison in 1958, and they had two sons before divorcing in 1964. Throughout her career, Morrison has worked as an academic, editor, and critic, and she continues to deliver lectures.

Following the release of her first novel in 1970, Morrison's work swiftly captured the attention of critics and readers who lauded her richly expressive style and keen ear for dialogue. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for her novel Beloved (1987) and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Morrison's body of work includes novels, plays, and nonfiction essays such as: The Bluest Eye (1969); Sula (1973); Song of Solomon (1977); Tar Baby (1981); Dreaming Emmett (1986, play); Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992); and Book of Mean People (2002). Additionally, Morrison has edited and collaborated on several projects with other authors.

Ishmael Reed (1938–)

Ishmael Reed was born on February 22, 1938, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1956 to 1960. Reed has authored numerous novels, short stories, poems, fiction, nonfiction, essays, literary criticism, and historical works. He has received numerous accolades, including a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1973 for Conjure: Selected Poems, 1963–1970. Reed has taught at various colleges and universities and led prose and poetry workshops throughout the United States.

His novels include: The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967); Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969); Mumbo Jumbo (1972); The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974); Flight to Canada (1976); The Terrible Twos (1982); Reckless Eyeballing (1986); The Terrible Threes (1989); and Japanese by Spring (1993).

His poetry includes works such as: catechism of neoamerican hoodoo church (1970); Conjure: Selected Poems, 1963–1970 (1972); Chattanooga: Poems (1973); A Secretary to the Spirits (1977); and New and Collected Poems (1988).

Reed's poetry reflects the intricate texture of his novels, blending language from street vernacular to scholarly discourse, and incorporating dialects, slang, and inventive neologisms. He frequently references mythologies and cultures beyond his personal experiences.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922–)

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He pursued his education at Cornell University, Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon University), and the University of Chicago, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1971. Between 1942 and 1945, he served in the U.S. Army Infantry and spent some time as a POW, earning a Purple Heart.

From 1941 to 1942, Vonnegut served as an editor for the Cornell Daily Sun. In 1947, he worked as a police reporter for the Chicago City News Bureau. He was also part of the public relations team at General Electric Co. in Schenectady, NY, from 1947 to 1950. Beginning in 1950, he embarked on a career as a freelance writer.

Vonnegut taught at Hopefield School in Sandwich, MA, the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, Harvard University, and the City College of the City University of New York in 1965. In 1986, he spoke at the National Coalition Against Censorship's hearing for the attorney general’s Commission on Pornography briefing.

He has received numerous accolades and honors over his career. His body of work includes a wide range of novels, essays, plays, and articles for various magazines and journals. Some of his notable novels are The Sirens of Titan (1959), Mother Night (1961), Cat’s Cradle (1963), God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; or, Pearls before Swine (1965), Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children’s Crusade (1969), and a collection of short stories, Welcome to the Monkey House (1968). His more recent works include the novels Jailbird (1979) and Timequake (1997).

Vonnegut's writing is characterized by sharp satire and irony. Many of his characters appear across multiple novels. Kilgore Trout is featured in Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse-Five, among others, while the Tralfamadorians are present in both The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five. He often incorporates quotes from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations into his work.

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