Douwe W. Fokkema

Matei Calinescu

The great diversity of contexts in which the term Postmodernism is currently encountered reflects the remarkable success of a coinage that has been in circulation for only about forty years. It has been used by philosophers, sociologists, art critics and literary historians to become, finally, a household word in the language of advertising and politics. Before letting it fade to a derelict cliché, an attempt is made in this volume of essays to use its potential as a cultural concept for the analysis and understanding of contemporary literature and thought.

Selected papers presented at a Workshop on Postmodernism at the XIth International Comparative Literature Congress, Paris, 2024 August 1985

Exploring Postmodernism

Frans Ruiter

Deze bundel presenteert interdisciplinair onderzoek rond het thema innovatie. De krititische vragen die L.C. Brinkman, destijds minister van WVC, bij het begrip innovatie in de kunst stelt, worden beantwoord door de theater wetenschapper Henri Schoenmakers. De bijdragen op het gebied van muziek (Paul Op de Coul), architectuur (A.W. Reinink) en de letterkunde (Hans Bertens) gaan in op de spanning tussen conventie en innovatie. Deze spanning is ook de leidraad in het betoog van Johan Somerwil en F. Roos, sprekend vanuit hun ervaring met het uitgeversbedrijf en de wereld van de financïele diensten. De historici H.W. von der Dunk en Pim den Boer relativeren de cultus van het nieuwe. A.D. Wolff-Albers noteert haar reserves tegenover radicale veranderingen in het wetenschapsbeleid. De comparatist Douwe Fokkema en de historicus T. van Tijn onderzoeken regelmatigheden in culturele en conjuncturele vernieuwing. Innovatie bevat het verslag van een in 1988 gehouden symposium, dat heeft geleid to een vruchtbare dialoog over de disciplinegrenzen heen.

Innovatie

In these lectures, delivered at Harvard University in March 1983, the differences between Modernism and Postmodernism are discussed in semiotic terms, based on a contrastive analysis of semantic and syntactical (compositional) features. They present the major results of research into the literary conventions of Modernism (Gide, Larbaud, V. Woolf, du Perron, Th. Mann) and the innovations of Postmodernism (Borges, Fuentes, Barthelme, Calvino, Hermans). The investigation of innovation in literary history is based on a concept of literary evolution, launched by the Russian Formalists and elaborated by reception theory and semioticians such as Lotman and Eco. The author argues for further corroboration by means of empirical – textual as well as psychological – research.

(The Harvard University Erasmus Lectures, Spring 1983)

Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism

Ann Rigney

Culture is studied in this collection, not merely as a set of products, but in terms of the involvement of individuals and groups in the making and using of such products. A wide range of activities, from the reading and writing of poetry to watching soccer on television, is surveyed by an international group of scholars from diverse disciplines: cultural history, literary studies, sociology. Topics include the social distribution of cultural activities, populism and elitism in modern aesthetics, the nature of cultural competence and the channels through which it is acquired, the impact of electronic media on traditional modes of culturalinvolvement, the role of public institutions such as churches, schools, and libraries in stimulating participation, and the relationship between cultural participation and socialization.

Trends since the Middle Ages

Cultural Participation

Hans Bertens

Containing more than fifty essays by major literary scholars, International Postmodernism divides into four main sections. The volume starts off with a section of eight introductory studies dealing with the subject from different points of view followed by a section that deals with postmodernism in other arts than literature, while a third section discusses renovations of narrative genres and other strategies and devices in postmodernist writing. The final and fourth section deals with the reception and processing of postmodernism in different parts of the world. Three important aspects add to the special character of International Postmodernism: The consistent distinction between postmodernity and postmodernism; equal attention to the making and diffusion of postmodernism and the workings of literature in general; and the focus on the text and the reader (i.e., the reader's knowledge, experience, interests, and competence) as crucial factors in text interpretation. This comprehensive study does not expressly focus on American postmodernism, although American interpretations of postmodernism are a major point of reference. The recognition that varying literary and cultural conditions in this world are bound to produce endless varieties of postmodernism made the editors, Hans Bertens and Douwe Fokkema, opt for the title International Postmodernism.

Douwe W. Fokkema

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