Postmodernism

Featuring summaries of postmodernism's greatest literary, cultural, and political champions written by a diverse group of scholars, Postmodernism: The Key Figures captures the dominance of a theoretical paradigm that has done nothing less than re-define the very terms of our knowledge and experience.

• 
  
• Features summaries of postmodernism's key figures, written by a diverse group of scholars.
  
• Highlights over fifty of postmodernism's greatest literary, cultural and political champions.
  
• Includes an extensive bibliography of resources in postmodernism.

List of Contributors.

Introduction. Hans Bertens and Joseph Natoli.

1. Peter Ackroyd. Susana Onega.

2. Louis Althusser. Richard D. Wolff.

3. John Ashbery. Steven Monte.

4. Paul Auster. Madeleine Sorapure.

5. Mikhail Bakhtin. Galin Tihanov.

6. John Barth. Theo D'haen.

7. Roland Barthes. David Herman.

8. Georges Bataille. Jean-François Fourny.

9. Jean Baudrillard. Douglas Kellner.

10. Jorge Luis Borges. Evelyn Fishburn.

11. John Cage. Nancy Perloff.

12. Italo Calvino. Rocco Capozzi.

13. Angela Carter. Joanne Gass.

14. Ping Chong. Philip Auslander.

15. Ethan and Joel Cohen. Joseph Natoli.

16. Robert Coover. Robert L. McLaughlin.

17. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Ronald Bogue.

18. Don DeLillo. Christopher Douglas.

19. Jacques Derrida. Hugh J. Silverman.

20. Marguerite Duras. Martine Antle.

21. Umberto Eco. Peter Bondanella.

22. Frantz Fanon. Robert Bernasconi.

23. Michel Foucault. Karlis Racevskis.

24. John Fowles. Susana Onega.

25. Carlos Fuentes. Sheldon Penn.

26. William H. Gass. Thomas B. Hove.

27. John Hawkes. Roy Flannagan.

28. Antonio Gramsci. Marcia Landy.

29. Jenny Holzer. Paula Geyh.

30. Fredric Jameson. Sean Homer.

31. Charles Jencks. Hans Bertens.

32. Barbara Kruger. Paula Geyh.

33. Thomas Kuhn. Arkady Plotnitsky.

34. Jacques Lacan. James A. Steintrager.

35. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Philip Goldstein.

36. Robert Lepage. Jennifer Harvie.

37. Emmanuel Levinas. Peter Atterton.

38. Jean-Francois Lyotard. Hans Bertens.

39. David Lynch. Joseph Natoli.

40. Trinh T. Minh-ha. E. Ann Kaplan.

41. Toni Morrison. Thomas B. Hove.

42. Thomas Pynchon. Dominic Pettman.

43. Robert Rauschenberg. John G. Hatch.

44. Ishmael Reed. David G. Nicholls.

45. Richard Rorty. Frans Ruiter.

46. Salman Rushdie. Eyal Amiran.

47. Cindy Sherman. John G. Hatch.

48. Graham Swift. Wendy Wheeler.

49. Gianni Vattimo. Nicoletta Pireddu.

50. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Jim Collins.

51. Kurt Vonnegut. Todd F. Davis.

52. Hayden White. Ewa Domanska.

53. The Wooster Group. Greg Giesekam.

Bibliography.

Index.

"The word 'postmodern' resists precise definition, and a definitive survey of postmodernism would be a contradiction in terms. But this book does the next best thing, giving lucid and comprehensive summaries of the work of a broad range of postmodern artists and thinkers."Steven Shaviro, University of Washington

Hans Bertens is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Utrecht. He has published widely on postmodernism and literary theory, including The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (1995) and Literary Theory: The Basics (2001).

Joseph Natoli teaches at the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. He has written a cultural history of 1990s America with the volumes Hauntings (1994), Speeding to the Millennium (1998), and Postmodern Journeys (2000), and he is also author of A Primer to Postmodernity (1997).

This state-of-the-art handbook represents the postmodern revolution to the broadest extent of its impact on contemporary theories of culture and society. A diverse group of scholars offers over fifty summaries of the key figures who have been postmodernism's greatest literary, cultural, and political champions. From Salman Rushdie to Robert Rauschenberg, Frantz Fanon to Michel Foucault, and Carlos Fuentes to Cindy Sherman, Postmodernism: The Key Figures captures the dominance of a theoretical paradigm that has done nothing less than redefine the very terms of our knowledge and experience.

Entries mark the formal institutionalization of postmodernism in the academy – from fine art, philosophy, and literature to race/ethnic studies, film, and music. Postmodernism: The Key Figures is a handy reference for anyone who wants to understand how contemporary society, politics, and our everyday lives have been touched by this most recent – and most controversial – of theoretical turns.