Post-modernism

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Definition

Compact Oxford English Dictionary: “a style and concept in the arts characterised by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions”

American Heritage Dictionary: “of or relating to art, architecture that reacts against earlier modernist prinicples, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by charrying modernist styles or practices to extremes: ‘It [a roadhouse] is so architecturally interesting…with its postmodern wooden booths and sculptural clock’”

"One does not simply define postmodernism"

- Mr Barton

Postmodern Literature

Post modern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, tends to resist definition or classification as a “movement”, i.e. difficult to define/describe as a movement

Characteristics

• Intertextuality
  • A text is not constructed in isolation
    • Variants of this quote are often found in exam questions
  • Each text is influenced by those that preceded it
  • Texts may allude to or echo other texts
  • Key difference between allusion is that allusion stems from the author, intertextuality stems from the reader
• Metafiction
  • This is writing about writing OR foregrounding the process OR breaking the fourth wall
• Pastiche
  • Like a collage or Frankenstein’s monster (or that terrible Deadpool wannabe in the Wolverine movie)…this is the collation of elements from a variety of sources/genres
• Maximalism and minimalism
  • Minimalism is low key, cutting things down to their essential elements
    • it is like the iPhone camera
  • Maximalism is elaborate descriptions of extreme detail
    • it is like the Samsung camera
• Playfulness and black humour
  • Postmodern literature is often tongue-in-cheek and will make light of dark situations and/or use irony in its storytelling
• Fragmentation
  • Who needs linear narratives when you can mess with your audience by destroying the space-time continuum?
  • Basically the narrative is not linear, i.e. in fragments
  • It’s like an iPhone when it drops from a height of 1 mm. It is shattered.
• Magic Realism
• Technoculture and hyperreality
• Paranoia
  • The feeling that someone is watching you, or someone is out to get you
    • SOMEONE IS OUT TO GET ME, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
• Temporal distortion

Margaret Thatcher Research

• Controversial
• “Iron Lady”
• Some people thought she was a strong female leader, but a ton of women hated her
• Reduced the influence of trade unions
• Privatised certain industries
• Scaled back public benefits
• Changed the terms of political debate
• Part of the Oxford Union Conservative Association
• Demonised by her Labour Party opponents as “Thatcher the milk snatcher” when she eliminated a free milk program for schoolchildren
• “A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master—these are the British inheritance.”
• Argentina stuff (killed 300 innocent people on a cruiser)
• the Margaret Thatcher foundation is hilarious
  • absolute comedy gold
• Read “The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman” by Raymond Briggs
• 1979 - 1990 as British Prime Minister
• Classist policies impacted the less privileged
• IRON LADY - strict and rigid (policies and as a person), “masculine” and not “feminine” demeanour
• Socially devicive policies (women critiqued them)

ppt stuff: Margaret Thatcher (1935 - 2013)

• Often credited with having revitalised the British economy - inflation (temporary) went down, while incomes rose. However, by 1982 (the year Top Girls premiered)
  • Unemployment soared to 3 million compared to 1.5 million in 1979, but later “stabilised” to 1.6 million by 1990
  • The Gini coefficient which represents wealth inequality by country, had risin in Britain from 0.25 to 0.29 and would climb up to 0.34 by 1990
  • The percentage of Britons living in poverty was rising. By 1990, 28% of children would be below the poverty line
• Lead the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom (colloquially known as the ‘Tories’) from 1975 to 1990
• Served as Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990
• UK’s first female PM
• UK’s longest servving PM of the 20th century
• Called the ‘Iron Lady’ by a Soviet journalist for her uncompromising leadership style; the nickname stuck domestically and internationally

"No British woman this century can come close to her achievements in grasping power. Someone of the wrong sex and the wrong class broke through what looked like invincible barriers to reach into the heart of the establishment. Women who complain that Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist because she didn't help other women or openly acknowledge her debt to feminism have a point, but they are also missing something vital. She normalised female success. She showed that although female power and masculine power may have different languages, different metaphors, different gestures, different traditions, different ways of being glamorous or nasty they are equally strong, equally valid...No-one can ever question whether women are capable of single-minded vigour, of efficient leadership, after Margaret Thatcher. She is the great unsung heroine of British feminism."

- Natasha Walter, writer and campaigner

"Well, she wasn't a feminist, nor will she ever be a "feminist icon" in my sense of the word. But we can't deny that having our first woman prime minister was a major symbolic leap forward. And it's salutary for those on the left to be reminded that positive social change does sometimes come from the right"

- Mary Beard, classics Professor

"Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative party at the height of the women's movement, yet she was completely apart from our campaigns, our passions and our identity. She was the middle-aged woman with the hats, the pearls, the teeth, the strangled high-pitched voice, and the policies which had nothing to do with equal pay for work of equal value, free abortion on demand or take back the night marches."

- Linda Grant, author

Second Wave Feminism

• The key fight of the first wave of feminism across the world was that of the right of women to vote
• The second wave of feminism brought forward questions around gender, gender-based discrimination, equality, and the role of women in society, politics, the home and the workforce
• Feminists associated with the second wave challenged traditional perceptions pertaining to ‘taboo’ topics such as: women’s sexual agency outside of marriage, monogamy, heteronormativity; the legality of abortion; the availability of contraception
• The movement was also sought to raise awareness of issues such as domestic violence, rape (and marital rape), and sexual harassment

QRD

• Margaret Thatcher was a conservative women

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