Postmodernism is a broad set of intellectual developments that emerged in reaction to modernism. It is characterized by celebrating fragmentation rather than lamenting it, and rejecting distinctions between high and popular art. Key figures like Habermas, Lyotard, and Baudrillard influenced postmodernist thought. Baudrillard proposed a four stage model where signs can represent reality, distort it, conceal absence, or bear no relation to reality. Postmodernism focuses on what is possible rather than searching for meaning, and emphasizes playful avoidance of meaning in art, literature and culture.

1. POST MODERNISM,
AN OVERVIEW
BY:
SADIYA ABUBAKAR

2. WHAT IS
POSTMODERNISM?
•A theorem applied to a wide range of set
of intellectual developments in
architecture, literary criticism, art and
culture.
•It is generally characterized as emerging
from a reaction or continuation of
modernism

3. POSTMODERNISM IN CONTRAST TO
MODERNISM
• While modernists search for meaning in a chaotic
world, Postmodernists playfully avoid the possibility of
meaning.
• Modernism as a theory, focuses more on what existed
but Postmodernism focus on what is possible to exist.
• The Modernists lament fragmentation while the
Postmodernists celebrate it.
• The Postmodernists reject the distinction between
high and popular art which was very important to the

4. BACKGROUND OF
POSTMODERNISM
•JURGEN HABERMAS’ ’Modernity – an Incomplete
Project’ (1980)
•JEAN – FRANCOIS LYOTARD’S ’The Postmodern
Condition: A Report on Knowledge’ (1979) and
‘Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?’
(1982)
•JEAN BAUDRILLARD’S ’Simulations’ (1981) “the loss of

5. BAUDRILLARD’S FOUR STAGE MODEL
Baudrillard’s four signs with practical examples
• Sign one: The sign represent the basic reality

6. CONT.
• Sing two: when signs misrepresent or distorts the reality behind
it

7. Sign three: the signs conceals absence (hyper-
real)

8. CONT.
•Sign four: the sign bears no relation to any
reality at all.
•WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT
9/11?

9. CONCLUSION
In literature however, Postmodern critics discover postmodernist
themes, tendencies and attitudes within literary works of the
twentieth century and explore their implications. Ex:- Dream on
Monkey Mountain and its Magic Realism.
The postmodernist critics focus on the application of these
aforementioned ideas in analysing a text.