Contemporary and Postmodern American Literature--Eliot, Updike, Walker

Postmodernism is any of a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, history, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding modernism. It can apply to movements in the arts, to mean stylistic developments such as collage, the return of ornament and historical reference, as well as appropriation of popular media. In sociology postmodernism is said to be an economic and cultural change coming from the ubiquity of mass production and mass media. In philosophy it refers to movements surrounding post-structuralism and other critiques of positivism. Postmodernism can also be used as a pejorative term to attack changes in society seen as undesirable as they relate to questioning of absolute value systems and other forms of foundationalism. As with many other divisions, the use of the term is subject to the lumpers and splitters problem. There are those who use very small and exact definitions, and there are those who deny that there is a postmodernism at all distinct from the modern period, preferring instead to use terms such as "late modernism". (Source)

Relevant Links and Resources

• Contemporary Philosophy, Critcal Theory and Postmodern Thought (A site with a variety of links to postmodern theories)
• The American Literature Archive (A site with distinguished definition and concepts, characteristics of what postmodern poetry is about)
• Related Resources--American Literature Since 1945 (A site with a variety of additional resources to Postmodern Literature, included with examples and further resources)