Postmodernism for Beginners - Softcover

Richard Appignanesi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1874166218 ISBN 13: 9781874166214

Publisher: Icon Books, 1995

Synopsis

What on earth is postmodernism? This is a guide to the maddeningly enigmatic concept which is supposed to define the human cultural condition at the end of the 20th century. Postmodernism claims that "modernity" has collapsed, that the historical process which began with the enlightenment, industrialism, Darwin, Marx, Freud and so on has exhausted itself and there is no more "future", just an endlessly "contemporary" world full of endlessly contested meanings. This uncertainty has led to a postmodern culture which embodies parody, pastiche and cultural cross-over and claims as its own such diverse phenomena as Andy Warhol, neo-classical architecture and Mickey Mouse! This book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through structuralism, deconstruction, cyberspace and semiotics in the company of the essential postmodern icons from Adorno and Lacan to Foucault and Umberto Eco.

About this title

Review:

"Brilliantly wide-ranging" -- Sunday Times

About the Author:

Richard Appignanesi is a novelist, editor and publisher, and a Research Fellow at King's College London. He is the originating editor of the Introducing series and has written books on Freud, postmodernism and existentialism in the series.

About this edition

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1874166218
• ISBN 13: 9781874166214
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176
• Illustrator: Chris Garratt