Defining Literary Postmodernism for the Twenty-First Century

Matthias Stephan is Lecturer at Aarhus University, Denmark. He researches primarily on postmodernism, and its implications in the Gothic, science fiction, and crime fiction. He is general editor for Otherness: Essays and Studies, and coordinator of the Centre for Studies in Otherness.

• 1. Introduction.- Part I Defining Postmodernism.- 2. What Do the Theorists Say (and How Do They Fit)?.- 3. Characteristically Postmodern.- 4. Mapping the Space of Postmodernism.- Part II Postmodernism in Praxis.- 5. Whodunit? And How Do We Know? (or Do We?): The Structure of the Epistemological Investigation in Detective Fiction.- 6. What World Is This? Who Am I (in It?)?: The Structure of the Ontological Formation in Science Fiction.- 7. The Postmodern Novel: How It All Comes Together, in a Rhizomatic Way.- 8. Coda: What Comes Next? (Or What to Do with a Problem Called Postmodernism?).

“His useful identification and criticism of the insufficiencies of the previous attempts at a unitary definition of postmodernism is straightforwardly valuable. … one of the distinctive qualities of Defining Literary Postmodernism throughout is an interesting debate apropos McHale’s use of the dominant in defining (post)modernist fiction. … postmodernism is worth understanding, and studying, as more than just the thing the present improved upon.” (Ali Dehdarirad,orbit.openlibhums.org, 2021)