In similar fashion, the isolation and examination of the stage image of Cleopatra becomes an attempt to improve the understanding of the theatrical power of her infinite variety and the cultural treatment of that power .” So, as a microcosm, Cleopatra can be understood within a postmodern context, as long as one understands that the purpose for the examination of this microcosm is to further one ’ s own interpretation of the work as a whole.

Criticisms of the postmodern condition can broadly be put into four categories: criticisms of postmodernity from the perspective of those who reject modernism and its offshoots, criticisms from supporters of modernism who believe that postmodernity lacks crucial characteristics of the modern project, critics from within postmodernity who seek reform or change based on their understanding of postmodernism, and those who believe that postmodernity is a passing, and not a growing, phase in social organization.

According to Ian Mobsby, the Emerging Church has reacted to the missional needs of postmodern culture and re-acquired a Trinitarian basis to its understanding of Church as Worship, Mission and Community.

Most postmodern productions are centered around highlighting the fallibility of definite truth, instead encouraging the audience to reach their own individual understanding.

Hegel points out that the understanding and consequently writing of history always relies on a framework, be it religious, secular, ' postmodern ' - that word is the very definition of ambiguity.

Often McLaren's postmodern approach to hermeneutics and Biblical understanding prompts him to take a less traditional approach towards issues considered controversial by fundamentalists, such as homosexuality.

In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text.

Many postmodern thinkers who investigated the problem of nihilism as put forward by Nietzsche, were influenced by Martin Heidegger ’ s interpretation of Nietzsche.

Participants in the movement exhibit a particular concern for the effect of the modern reader's cultural context on the act of interpretation echoing the ideas of postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish.

" Sherwin notes sociologist Jean Baudrillard's interpretation of the postmodern media landscape " flattening " meaning, and the impossibility of “ truth, authority, and history ” existing, as fitting within this notion.

Hypertextuality is a postmodern theory of the inter-connectedness of all literary works and their interpretation.

Members of the Department specialize in various stages of the development of philosophy ( Ancient philosophy, the Middle Ages, the Modern era, contemporary and postmodern philosophy ), also carrying out research in various philosophical disciplines ( metaphysics, logic, aesthetics, sociology, political science, religious studies, philosophy of nature, philosophy of history ) and investigating various aspects and problems of philosophy ( ethics of medicine, feminism, applied ethics, interpretation of art, Bible studies, philosophy of language ).

Another view, as important to the philosophy of art as " beauty ," is that of the " sublime ," elaborated upon in the twentieth century by the postmodern philosopher Jean-François Lyotard.

Cyberpunk is a postmodern science fiction genre noted for its focus on " high tech and low life.

Among Western historians, it conflicts with the postmodern impulse which is skeptical of great narratives.

* An example of critical postmodern work is Rolling, Jr., J. H. ( 2008 ).

In " Deconstructing History ", Alun Munslow examines history in what he argues is a postmodern age.

His poetry is not as highly critically esteemed as his fiction, although some critics place him as the first modernist poet in the United States ; others would assert that his work more strongly suggest what today would be a postmodern view.

This story also is a direct illustration of one of the tenets of postmodern theory — that the sign is not the thing it signifies, nor can one claim to fully or properly describe a thing or an idea with a word or other symbol.

Minimalism is variously construed either as a precursor to postmodernism, or as a postmodern movement itself.

He argues that minimalism is not a " dead end " of modernism, but a " paradigm shift toward postmodern practices that continue to be elaborated today.

Another trend in art which has been associated with the term postmodern is the use of a number of different media together.

While the theory of combining multiple arts into one art is quite old, and has been revived periodically, the postmodern manifestation is often in combination with performance art, where the dramatic subtext is removed, and what is left is the specific statements of the artist in question or the conceptual statement of their action.

Its destruction is considered by some to be the beginning of postmodern architecture.

Theorists, notably Rushworth Kidder, claimed that mediation is the foundation of a ' postmodern ') ethics — and that it sidesteps traditional ethical issues with pre-defined limits of morality.

* American Heritage Dictionary: " Of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes: ' It roadhouse is so architecturally interesting ... with its postmodern wooden booths and sculptural clock.

In ' Postmodernist Fiction ' ( 1987 ), Brian McHale details the shift from modernism to postmodernism, arguing that the former is characterized by an epistemological dominant, and that postmodern works have developed out of modernism and are primarily concerned with questions of ontology.

Postmodern music is either music of the postmodern era, or music that follows aesthetic and philosophical trends of postmodernism.

Because of this, Postmodern music is mostly defined in opposition to modernist music, and a work can either be modernist, or postmodern, but not both.

Postmodern Classical music as well is not a musical style, but rather refers to music of the postmodern era.

The postmodern era is positioned to synthesize at a higher level — the level of experience, where the being of things and the activity of the finite knower compenetrate one another and provide the materials whence can be derived knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture in their full symbiosis — the achievements of the ancients and the moderns in a way that gives full credit to the preoccupations of both.

Though postmodernist literature does not refer to everything written in the postmodern period, several post-war developments in literature ( such as the Theatre of the Absurd, the Beat Generation, and Magic Realism ) have significant similarities.

Even so, postmodern music still does not primarily define itself in opposition to modernist music ; this label is applied instead by critics and theorists.

The resultant academic and public quarrels concerned the scholarly merit, or lack thereof, of humanistic commentary about the physical sciences ; the influence of postmodern philosophy on social disciplines in general ; academic ethics, including whether Sokal was right or wrong to deceive the editors and readers of Social Text ; and whether the journal had exercised the appropriate intellectual rigor before publishing the pseudoscientific article.

In spring of 1997, the postmodern philosopher Fred Newman responded to the Sokal Affair publishing hoax in the paper " Science Can Do Better than Sokal: A Commentary on the So-Called Science Wars ", which he presented at the Postmodernism and the Social Sciences conference at the New School for Social Research ; Alan Sokal was a participant.

Cited as " one of the great set-ups of genre drama ", the opening sequence establishes the Orwellian and postmodern themes of the series ; its high production values have led the opening sequence to be described as more like film than television.

Some art / literary theorists ( Wheeler, 2006 ; Alexander, 2011 ) have proposed alternatives to postmodern understandings of " authorship " using the complexity sciences and emergence theory.

The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story ; a drug -, sex -, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors ' version of the Illuminati.

" The album also dovetails with themes and concepts from her brother Mark's postmodern novel House of Leaves ; the CD and the book were released simultaneously.

" Flores is not alone on this front ; there is argument between those who see magical realism as a Latin American invention and those who see it as the global product of a postmodern world.

William Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature ; he also inspired the cyberpunk genre.

Gaddis's influence is vast ( although frequently subterranean ): for example, postmodern authors such as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon seem to have been influenced by Gaddis ( indeed, upon publication of V., Pynchon was actually speculated to have been a pen name for Gaddis due to the similarity of styles and the dearth of information about the two authors ; the Wanda Tinasky letters also claimed that Gaddis, Pynchon, and Jack Green were the same person ), as well as authors such as Joseph McElroy, William Gass, David Markson, and David Foster Wallace, who have all stated their admiration for Gaddis in general and The Recognitions in particular.

There are several characteristics which lend art to being postmodern ; these include bricolage, the use of words prominently as the central artistic element, collage, simplification, appropriation, performance art, the recycling of past styles and themes in a modern-day context, as well as the break-up of the barrier between fine and high arts and low art and popular culture.

" Jean-François Lyotard, in Fredric Jameson's analysis, does not hold that there is a postmodern stage radically different from the period of high modernism ; instead, postmodern discontent with this or that high modernist style is part of the experimentation of high modernism, giving birth to new modernisms.

Seyla Benhabib ( 1995 ) and Judith Butler ( 1995 ) pursue this debate can be found in relation to feminist politics, Benhabib arguing that postmodern critique comprises three main elements ; an anti-foundationalist concept of the subject and identity, the death of history and of notions of teleology and progress, and the death of metaphysics defined as the search for objective truth.

The Pruitt – Igoe housing project was one of the first demolitions of modernist architecture ; postmodern architectural historian Charles Jencks called its destruction " the day Modern architecture died.

The novel has attracted the attention of scholars, including Jay Clayton, who explores the book's attitude toward hacking, as well as its treatment of Babbage and Ada Lovelace ; Herbert Sussman, who demonstrates how the book rewrites Benjamin Disraeli's novel Sybil ; and Brian McHale, who relates it to the postmodern interest in finding a " new way of ' doing ' history in fiction.

* Alasdair MacIntyre has made an effort to reconstruct a virtue-based theory in dialogue with the problems of modern and postmodern thought ; his works include After Virtue and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.

New prizes-Golden Lions, like the awards for the Venice Film Festival-were installed ; postmodern art entered the scene with increasingly varied and popular exhibitions.

The production was a success ; it was later viewed as a model for " coherent " or thematically unified approaches, in contrast to the postmodern or disintegrative approaches of the seventies and eighties.

Modern art foreshadowed several characteristics of what would later be definied as postmodern art ; as a matter of fact, several modern art movements can often be classified as both modern and postmodern, such as pop art.