ABSTRACT
In order to discuss the relation of postmodernism to politics, the main hurdle that has to be cleared stands at the outset. We have to understand what postmodernism is. But if we are to do that, we’ll need to drop the idea that there is such a thing as postmodernism which is there to be understood. Postmodernism is not like a quark or a public policy or a number: something that might in some sense be said to exist-or at least whose existence can be argued about-in order to comprehend it. Postmodernism is the name given to a number of movements that arose in a number of different areas. In architecture, for instance, Charles Jencks introduces the term in The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977) to refer to the eclecticism that supplanted the minimalist approach of high modernism. In painting, it sometimes refers to the idea that innovation has come to an end and that the project of painting is to recycle previous painting strategies with ironic self-reference. This is particularly exemplified in the work of David Salle. In literature, it is unclear whether the term has any use. Sometimes it refers to the breakdown of modernist narrative, exemplified for example in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. However, if we are looking for narrative play and breakdown, James Joyce’s Ulysses will do just as well, alongside works by Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and others. And if we call their work postmodernist, then it’s not at all clear what modernism is.
