These are some terms associated with postmodernism:

POSTMODERNISM. A highly disputed term, postmodernism in its simplest usage refers to the period of twentieth-century Western culture that immediately followed high modernism. For many, the beginning of the postmodern era corresponds to the use of atomic weapons and the rapid development of technology that followed. In this sense it is seen as both an extreme continuation of the countertraditional experiments of modernist art and literature and as a break from many of the conventions that became commonplace during modernism. The ALIENATION and ABSURDITY that figured so prominently in modernism are still evident in postmodern literature and art, but rather than follow the modernist attempt to fashion a unified, coherent worldview from the FRAGMENTATION that defines existence, the postmodernist accepts, whether indifferently or with celebration, the INDETERMINACY of meaning and the decenteredness of existence (see DECENTERING). The result in postmodern fiction is a play with the CONVENTIONS of the novel—authors often chat with characters, plots do not unfold as expected, and viable alternative realities exist within the pages of the text.

Postmodernity has also been discussed in terms of the culture of advanced capitalist societies since the 1960s. This culture, according to theorists like Jean Baudrillard, is composed of disparate fragmentary experiences and images that constantly bombard the individual in music, video, television, advertising and other forms of electronic media. The speed and ease of reproduction of these images mean that they exist only as images, devoid of depth, coherence, or originality. It is in arguments such as this one that postmodernism is seen as challenging traditional cultural values. And it is in such challenges that postmodernism is most often confused with the theoretical and critical project of poststructuralism, which shares this characteristic.

It is important to remember that while one use of postmodernism is to denote a specific period in Western culture, not all cultural works since World War II can be characterized as "postmodern." Most postmodernist works attempt to subvert the distinction between "high" and "low" culture. The result is often a blending or PASTICHE of techniques, genres, and even media. In literature the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Coover, and Roland Barthes are especially good examples of the ways that this combining takes place to discourage easy categorization. With these works it is not always possible to tell if one is reading an autobiography, a history, a novel, or literary criticism. Part of the point of such works is to exploit these distinctions as artificial and to emphasize the fragmentary quality of all texts. This way of seeing and representing the world has had a significant impact on other art forms, particularly film and music. The works of directors like Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Altman and of composers like Philip Glass, John Cage, and David Byrne are often cited as products of a postmodern sensibility that no longer feels bound, or necessarily reassured, by concepts of TOTALITY, unity, or determinate meaning. See also FRAGMENTATION, NEW WAVE CINEMA, REALISM, SIMULACRUM.

From The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. Ed. Joseph Childers and Gary Hentzi. New York: Coumbia U P, 1995.