Human beings make sense of the world through the stories that they tell. Contemporary media is still predominately postmodern, but there are signs that there is a shift towards a new ‘post...Show moreHuman beings make sense of the world through the stories that they tell. Contemporary media is still predominately postmodern, but there are signs that there is a shift towards a new ‘post-postmodern’ paradigm. In this thesis I will analyze this shift through the figure of the literary vampire, introducing the concept of the hauntological dominant of post-postmodernism.Show less
The commercialization of museums as a response to postmodern consumerism stimulates companies like Pizza Hut and the Rijksmuseum to engage with nostalgic marketing on Instagram. The current...Show moreThe commercialization of museums as a response to postmodern consumerism stimulates companies like Pizza Hut and the Rijksmuseum to engage with nostalgic marketing on Instagram. The current research aims to understand why museums are engaging in nostalgia marketing and what implications such engagement may have for the educational role of the museum today. It does so by investigating the needs and challenges faced by postmodern museums in relation to the allure of nostalgia. More particularly, this thesis examines nostalgia’s power to produce a comforting sense of continuity in one’s self-identity and a sense of social belonging. The field of nostalgia marketing is also defined and contrasted with other types of marketing strategies and further analyzed through a comparison of two museums and two commercial companies’ posts on Instagram. The conclusions point towards the usefulness of nostalgic marketing to engage museum audiences, while raising awareness of the dangers such strategies can pose for the educating role of museums.Show less
It is often assumed that all manipulation of truth follows a similar format. However, an examination of the way that ‘post-truth politics,’ the strategies, politicians and communities that...Show moreIt is often assumed that all manipulation of truth follows a similar format. However, an examination of the way that ‘post-truth politics,’ the strategies, politicians and communities that consciously manipulate facts to alter the ‘truth’ of their audience for political gains, and historiographic metafiction, a genre of postmodern literary texts that interpret history while simultaneously critically assessing and questioning the ‘truth’ they construct in their interpretation, shows that both post-truth politics and historiographic metafiction manipulate truth for completely different purposes. Yet, little research has been done on how these manipulations of truth work and how they differ. This thesis studies how truth is manipulated in post-truth politics and historiographic metafiction respectively, how these manipulations differ and overlap and what this means for future research on neutralizing or repurposing the manipulation of truth by post-truth politics.Show less
This thesis offers an analysis of the development of Salman's Rushdie's work through a close reading of two early novels (Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses) and two most recent novels (The...Show moreThis thesis offers an analysis of the development of Salman's Rushdie's work through a close reading of two early novels (Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses) and two most recent novels (The Golden House and Quichotte). The research question is to establish whether a major change in style has taken place. The premise is that a shift seems to have taken place from what Brian McHale calls the ontological dominant in postmodernism to an ethical and moral dominant. This thesis focuses particularly on typical postmodern topics such as the questioning of the ontological relationship between reality and truth, since Rushdie’s style of fantastical writing invites such a focus.Show less
The postmodern era may not have reached its end, yet its very characteristics invite research into a number of issues that postmodernism has so far failed to address in a satisfactory way. In the...Show moreThe postmodern era may not have reached its end, yet its very characteristics invite research into a number of issues that postmodernism has so far failed to address in a satisfactory way. In the last three decades, many have declared the death of postmodernism and demanded a theoretical system that could better represent the current sociocultural scene. In this post-postmodern fever, metamodernism offers itself as a cultural philosophy able to gather some important sociocultural and artistic tendencies of the last decades and illuminate the contingencies that shaped them by interpreting these tendencies as one single responsive wave to postmodern culture. This thesis will explore the legitimacy of the metamodern paradigm through the analysis of the tv show Maniac as the main case study.Show less
By examining two of the most acclaimed and popular televisual productions recently released, Mr. Robot (USA Network, 2015 - present) and Black Mirror (Channel 4/Netflix, 2011 - present), I wish to...Show moreBy examining two of the most acclaimed and popular televisual productions recently released, Mr. Robot (USA Network, 2015 - present) and Black Mirror (Channel 4/Netflix, 2011 - present), I wish to show up to what extent they portray the expansion of capitalism into the political, cultural and social dimensions of our Western contemporary reality as a phenomenon weakening our utopian sense of the future. Drawing upon the field of social theory, I will argue that Mr. Robot, with its emphasis on the political and cultural domains, shows how mechanisms of control and manipulation responding to the logic of late capitalism and consumerism are influencing our ability to imagine a new and alternative system to the current one. In the case of Black Mirror, criticism towards late capitalism revolves around the use and abuse of new technologies, which implement the spiral of image addiction, the power of commodities, and cause a dramatic change in the way we perceive the boundaries between life and death. Throughout my analysis, I will refer to the utopian genre, and, specifically, its most recent variation of critical dystopia, with the aim of considering the tension and interaction between utopia and dystopia in the two TV series as a strategy, first, to raise awareness in the public about the most degrading aspects of our reality and, secondly, to reinvigorate a concept of utopia not as escapist thinking, but as a transformative impulse to change society and potentially overcome the cultural deadlock of capitalism.Show less
Set in Nazi Germany and told from the perspective of Death, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak tells the story of a young German girl named Liesel who stubbornly tries to read books despite the forces...Show moreSet in Nazi Germany and told from the perspective of Death, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak tells the story of a young German girl named Liesel who stubbornly tries to read books despite the forces in her life trying to keep her from doing so. The Book Thief has been classified as postmodern – and, more specifically, magic realist – holocaust fiction (Adams 2011). This thesis analyses the translation of the novel's postmodern elements both in the Dutch translation of The Book Thief by Annemarie Lodewijk, released in 2009, and the film adaptation, released by Sunswept Entertainment in 2013. Rather than weighing in on whether The Book Thief is “better” as a book than as a film, this thesis instead attempts to analyse whether the film adaptation is effective in conveying postmodern elements, and whether the Dutch subtitles are effective in capturing the source material's postmodern character.Show less
Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (1998) is a text that traverses the boundaries between postmodernism and mythology. As such, it investigates and builds further upon its own mythological...Show moreAnne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (1998) is a text that traverses the boundaries between postmodernism and mythology. As such, it investigates and builds further upon its own mythological foundations, rooted in the poem Geryoneis by the ancient Greek poet Stesichoros. The aim of this study is to explore, through a close reading of Carson’s text, how we can move from thinking about mythology solely in terms of representation towards thinking of mythology in terms of simulation. This argument will be made by taking a semiotic approach. This approach not only makes a diachronic study of mythological language possible, but also makes it possible for us to think about how signs traverse (spatially) between different sign systems. The study starts by using René Girard’s approach of reading myths as texts of persecution in order to uncover Autobiography of Red’s underlying ideological codes. Linda Hutcheon’s theories concerning historiographic metafiction and parody are then used in order to explore how Carson, in using syllogistics, investigates the origins of the supposed blinding of Stesichoros by Helen of Troy. The study then moves on to a diachronic study of the sign systems in the text using Roland Barthes’ theory concerning myth as well as his metalingual system. The final chapter of this study starts out by conceptualizing a notion of textual space, following Barthes’ distinction between ‘work’ and ‘Text’ and Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s philosophy of smooth and striated space. After having conceptualized textual space, a diagrammatic and simulative function of mythology is theorized.Show less
Bernard Cornwell’s Arthurian fiction contains Malorian elements, but is not based on Malory’s medieval Arthurian universe. This thesis examines how, why, and to what effect Cornwell demythologises...Show moreBernard Cornwell’s Arthurian fiction contains Malorian elements, but is not based on Malory’s medieval Arthurian universe. This thesis examines how, why, and to what effect Cornwell demythologises Malorian elements in "The Warlord Chronicles", and proposes that these Malorian elements are inverted to the point where they do not detract from but add to the novels’ historical setting from a postmodern perspective. A selection of Malorian elements — and Cornwell’s inversion thereof — will be discussed in chapter one. The postmodern influence on the “Warlord Chronicles” trilogy — and the necessity of the postmodern elements in Cornwell’s writing considering Cornwell’s attempt at historical accuracy — will be discussed in chapter two in light of how the novels’ postmodern elements enhance the effect of the inversions of Malory on Cornwell’s narrative, which is historical rather than legendary. The postmodern narrative structure in particular emphasises Cornwell’s demystification of the Arthurian legend, as will be demonstrated in chapter three.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
open access
The French writer Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) is seen as a forerunner of avant-garde movements such as futurism, Dadaism and surrealism. In this study, his influence on postmodernism is evaluated by...Show moreThe French writer Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) is seen as a forerunner of avant-garde movements such as futurism, Dadaism and surrealism. In this study, his influence on postmodernism is evaluated by close reading his most important fictional texts, but also several of his biographies. Jarry can be considered postmodern because of the great amount of ontological doubt in his work and in his life. His biographers augmented this by (intentionally or not) emphasizing the ontological confusion. Their ‘facts’ were the result of interpretation and representation.Show less
