Talk:Postmodernism

Section on "Origin of Term" Is Inaccurate
The statement that Chapman used the term "postmodern" in 1870 is unfounded. See Oxford English Dictionary for documented early uses of "postmodern" and related terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.36.7.1 (talk) 03:19, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

structural issues
Hey all,

I'm looking at doing some edits to the top of this article (i.e., above Manifestations section) with stronger sourcing to academic works by actual subject-matter experts. There are also, however, some structural issues I wanted to check in on before beginning.

Is there a reason for treating Origin and History separately? I haven't yet worked through the material in detail, but I would default to combining these into one section, probably entitled Etymology, to precede Definition (or perhaps, as with the work I've been doing on Irony, something more along the lines of The Challenge of Definition).

The Theories and Derivatives section is confusing to me. Structuralism and post-structuralism are precursors to postmodernism that were after-the-fact co-opted under that umbrella term. This should be clear in the article. Post-postmodernism seems like it ought to belong to a Legacy section that does not exist (and so maybe should just be its own section after Manifestations until it does?).

I don't love that the header Manifestations suggests there is some one thing called postmodernism that has been theoretically articulated and appears under various guises in different media. My objection is not that this is contrary to postmodern theory, but just that it is a dubious claim that should not be presented as fact without strong sourcing. Lastly, shouldn't Philosophy, to the extent that it has not already been covered incidentally by Etymology and Definition, fall under this header (whatever the best term may be), rather than as its own section above what are currently presented as "manifestations"?

Any input appreciated!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I have not abandoned this. The structure now makes sense to me except for the question of where to put the precursor movements of (post-)structuralism and deconstruction. The next thing on my agenda, which is arguably the main thing, is the section currently titled Definition. I might incorporate them there—although this would probably require condensing them a bit, which I haven't worked through, but don't love.
 * Right now, the Definition section is sourced primarily to Britannica, which is not a good source on philosophical topics, and to notes from an old PBS series with no authorship attribution. A few look good, but lack page numbers. I haven't checked all of them, but Bryant, Ian; Johnston, Rennie; Usher, Robin (2004), at least, does not support the claim for which it is cited. My plan is to start fresh, but incorporate as much of what is there as is verifiably and due. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I finally got a draft into good enough shape to post to the mainspace. There is obviously a great deal that could (and should!) be added, but I think that it is nevertheless an improvement over the previous version—particularly with respect to sourcing.
 * I plan to give it a few days in case anyone has serious objections. Then I will rewrite the lead to summarize the current version of the article.
 * In the future, I also hope also to flesh out the philosophical part of the article as much as is appropriate when there is a child article, postmodern philosophy. I might also fiddle with the later parts of the article, but I have no plans to rewrite that material.
 * Cheers, Patrick (talk) 21:45, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Items for further improvement:
 * "In various arts" should have a section devoted to film.
 * The "In theory" section should be rewritten to focus on the influence of Derrida in the 1970s and Foucault in the 1980s. Probably coverage of Lyotard should be expanded beyond what is included in "Usage/Later developments". Baudrillard needs to be covered, and (per multiple sources) Richard Rorty. Barthes and Lacan would also be justified by the literature, but appear secondary. Anything more than this is probably best left to the postmodern philosophy child article.
 * "In theory" should also have a subsection on postmodern theology.
 * The "In society" section should have a subsection on the deployment of the term in non-academic political/cultural/popular discourse. It's remarkable that such a messy academic term should attain such currency outside of the academy. Suggestions for sourcing on this would be most welcome. I'm not even sure where best to look.
 * Per overview sources, "Criticisms" should give a paragraph each to both Jürgen Habermas and Fredric Jameson. More detailed discussion is best reserved for criticism of postmodernism.
 * I'm not going to do all of this, but I welcome comments on the above or, as always, other suggestions. Even just establishing a good TOC enables and encourages productive edits.
 * Cheers, Patrick (talk) 20:14, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Intellectual vs. Anti-Intellectual
made the following two edits: , changing the first line from:


 * Postmodernism is an intellectual...

to:


 * Postmodernism is an anti-intellectual...

I explained on the the editors' talk page that we require sources, and eventually the editor provided this as a source:



I know enough about Postmodernism to know that the above source is not representing Postmodernism correctly; however, I am not familiar with the WP:RS in this article. I am hoping someone else who is more familiar with topic and the sourcing can explain the issues with the above source and why it would not be sufficient to make such a drastic change to the WP:LEDE. I also don't know enough about the publication to know if that source is reliable.

My assumption is that the author Marcel Kuntz is not an expert in an appropriate field, e.g. Philosophy, Semiotics, Critical theory, Literary criticism or Postmodernism. His expertise is in biotech. GMO is mostly what the article is actually about. The author seems to have no familiarity with the major issues with Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy) that go back to the Ancient Greeks and probably before them. Although Nietzsche's work was the first thing we read in my Postmodernism class, anyone with knowledge of Ancient philosophy and Modern philosophy knows the problems of subjectivity, Metaphysics, and what can be known (Epistemology) with certainty. These issues have been with us a long time. Descartes pondered this. David Hume had a scathing attack on the use of inductive reasoning in Empiricism in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. And Kant came up with a fantastic response in Critique of Pure Reason where he posits the Thing-in-itself. All this long before Nietzsche's scathing criticism of Western morality in works like On the Genealogy of Morality, which caused Analytical Philosophers like Bertrand Russell to attack him and his works. Based on my knowledge and the sources I have read, Kuntz does not seem to be familiar with any of this (or inexplicably omits it). What I also find so puzzling in Kuntz's writing is that he makes no mention of Uncertainty principle or the subjectivity inherent in the Theory of relativity. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:49, 11 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Author goes on about deconstruction at length, fails to mention Derrida once. Simonm223 (talk) 17:21, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

flagging weak entry
This description of postmodernism is poor: relies too much on thin accounts of postmodernism. Why isn't Fredric Jameson cited? I always ck wikipedia when writing lectures as some students will get info here. This account is misleading and unclear. 2600:1700:6237:D400:1885:E491:ACAC:E8E8 (talk) 16:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Great suggestion for improvement. Do you have some proposed text to bring Jameson in? He's definitely an appropriate source. Simonm223 (talk) 17:02, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article needs a lot of work, some of which I have been doing—at an admittedly plodding pace (see above). Jameson does appear in Criticism_of_postmodernism, but I agree he is important enough to merit mention as a critic in this article, perhaps also to be cited in a rewritten Definition(s) section. Left to my own devices, he probably will crop up somewhere. But if either of you have any specific language you want to see, please consider adding it yourself or sharing it here.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This section from the start of his postmodernism book is a good place to start shaping something probably.
 * Thus, abstract expressionism in painting, existentialism in philosophy, the final forms of representation in the novel, the films of the great auteurs, or the modernist school of poetry (as institutionalized and canonized in the works of Wallace Stevens): all these are now seen as the final, extraordinary flowering of a high modernist impulse which is spent and exhausted with them. The enumeration of what follows then at once becomes empirical, chaotic, and heterogeneous
 * But it's rather too long to use as a quote. Simonm223 (talk) 17:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Later we have every position on postmodernism in culture— whether apologia or stigmatization—is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today. - which is an excellent turn of phrase. Simonm223 (talk) 17:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

still to do
Since I take the structural issues discussed above to be mostly resolved, I'm starting a new thread. Mostly what I'm interested in here is other improvements to the article could be made without too much research in a way that might encourage and facilitate contributions from those with more subject-matter expertise. Here's my current list:


 * "In various arts" needs a section lead to provide even just a superficial explanation of why all these different things are grouped together as specifically postmodern.
 * It also needs a film section and a dance section. Even if these are very short, they can Wikilink out to their respective pages.
 * There are some mostly unsourced lists that need to be trimmed back or removed.
 * "In theory" needs to be rewritten in view of the "Theoretical development" section above. It might go back to "In philosophy" since the article can now dispense with most of the material on poststructuralism already covered. There are a few other names that show up in the literature that should be at least mentioned: D&G, Rorty, Habermas (again), Jameson (again), and Baudrillard (again) and possibly a few others who appear in some surveys (but are completely ignored in others). But since the article has a child page and some of this has been partially covered above, I expect it to be shorter when I am finished.
 * The "Criticisms" section is at least 80% criticisms of a specifically philosophical position (that, incidentally, very few people actually hold). I will probably move much of this to postmodern philosophy and see if there is anything at criticism of postmodernism that ought to be restored here to help keep this an appropriately general article.
 * I removed the the rather useless sidebar from its place at the top of the article. Trying to put it at the bottom, however, I learned that to do this requires it be reproduced according to a different template. If I can cut-and-paste my way through most of that, I'll do it. Otherwise, it's on someone else.
 * I'm pretty sure that postmodern theology is enough of a thing to merit inclusion somewhere.
 * The article lead needs to be rewritten to properly summarize the article for a general audience. Once that is done, I believe the maintenance banner can be safely removed.

Is there anything obvious I am missing?

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 22:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I addressed "Criticisms" as per above. Probably even the remaining material should be integrated into sections above where applicable. It's difficult to meaningfully criticize such diverse phenomena in a general way. (And the problems with using "postmodern" as a general term are already highlighted near the top of the article.) Patrick (talk) 19:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

new article lead
I've drafted a new lead for the article. It's an imperfect summary of a far from perfect article. Please share ideas for improvement!

Keep in mind that the lead is just a plain-language overview of the content of the article. Anything that is conspicuously missing or wrong in the lead needs to be added to the body of the article with supporting sources before changing anything non-egregiously wrong at the top. For the same reason, per WP:CITELEAD, the body of the article is the source of the lead; individual citations are not recommended except to prevent interventions by editors not aware of this policy. (Probably that will prove to be the case here, but I suggest we wait and respond just to issues that actually emerge.)

Here's the draft that, absent objections, I will soon publish to the article:

Postmodernism is a term used to refer to a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break with modernism. What they have in common is the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of representing reality. Still, there is disagreement among experts about its more precise meaning even within narrowly defined contexts.

The term began to acquire its current range of meanings in literary criticism and architectural theory during the 1950s–1960s. Building upon poststructural theory, postmodern thought defined itself by the rejection of any single, foundational historical narrative. This called into question the legitimacy of the Enlightenment account of progress and rationality.

In opposition to modernism's alleged self-seriousness, postmodernism is characterized by its playful use of irony and pastiche, among other features. Critics claim that it supplants moral, political, and aesthetic ideals with mere style and spectacle.

In the 1990s, "postmodernism" came to denote a general – and, in general, celebratory – response to cultural pluralism. Proponents align themselves with feminism, multiculturalism, and post-colonialism. Critics, however, allege that its premises lead to a nihilistic form of relativism. In this sense, it has become a term of abuse in popular culture.

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)