| Author: | Fredric Jameson |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Publisher: | Duke University Press |
| Pub Date: | 1991 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages: | 461 |
| Isbn: | 978-0-8223-1090-7 |
| Oclc: | 21330492 |
| Congress: | PN98.P67 J3 1991 |
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism is a 1991 book by Fredric Jameson, in which the author offers a critique of modernism and postmodernism from a Marxist perspective. The book began as a 1984 article in the New Left Review.[1] [2] It has been presented as his "most wide-ranging and accessible book".[3]
Jameson defines postmodernism as the cultural system of a global, financialized stage of capitalist society. Jameson argues that postmodernism is characterized by a "crisis of historicity," a "waning of affect," and a prevalence of pastiche. He traces these characteristics of postmodernism across a variety of fields and media, including film, television, literature, economics, architecture, and philosophy. In one of his most prominent examples, he draws out the differences between modernism and postmodernism by comparing Van Gogh's “Peasant Shoes” with Andy Warhol's “Diamond Dust Shoes.” For Jameson, postmodernism, as a form of mass-culture driven by capitalism, pervades every aspect of our daily lives.