Postmodernism: Definition #2

Label given to cultural forms since the 1960s that display the following qualities:

Self reflexivity: This involves the seemingly paradoxical combination of self-consciousness and some sort of historical grounding.

Irony: Post modernism uses irony as a primary mode of expression, but it also abuses, installs, and subverts conventions and usually negotiates contradictions through irony.

Boundaries: Post modernism challenges the boundaries between genres, art forms, theory and art, high art and the mass media.

Constructs: Post modernism is actively involved in examining the constructs society creates including, but not exclusively, the following:

• Nation: Post modernism examines the construction of nations/nationality and questions such constructions
• Gender: Post modernism reassesses gender, the construction of gender, and the role of gender in cultural formations
• Race: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of race
• Sexuality: Post modernism questions and reassesses constructs of sexuality