Literary and cultural studies in the later twentieth century were very much shaped by debates about modernism and postmodernism as labels for successive periods, but also for different competing interpretations of recent cultural history. In the twenty-first century, the shock waves that were sent through the global system on political, cultural, economic, and ecological levels by terrorist attacks, regional conflicts, poverty, the financial crisis and the threat of environmental disaster raise anew the question of how and to what extent the tradition of modernity can be newly defined in a situation where the problematic aspects of these ideas have rightly been exposed, but where they nevertheless appear to be crucial for any responsible assessment of contemporary world culture and its future perspectives. Redefining Modernism and Postmodernism offers a collection of critical articles that resulted from the International Cultural Studies Symposium at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey in 2009. Scholars from around the world have contributed to this volume reflecting the current perspective on modernism and postmodernism, shedding new light on literature, literary theory, philosophy, politics, religion, film and art. Providing an account of this field, this book enables readers to navigate the subject by introducing essays on transformations of modernism and postmodernism in the twenty-first century, and the debates beyond the modernism/postmodernism dichotomy.

How can the short story help to redefine modernism, postmodernism and their interrelationship? What is the status of the short story in modern literary history? These are the central questions that the essays collected in this volume try to answer from different perspectives through readings of short fiction in English and accounts of the genre’s theorisations. The essays by a group of international scholars tackle theoretical issues that are central in approaches to both “movements” such as periodisation, autonomy, high vs. popular literature, totality vs. fragmentation, surface vs. depth, otherness, representation, and, above all, the subject and its vicissitudes. Because it blends theory-based arguments into the approaches to the short fiction of mainly canonical authors (Joyce, Woolf, Lewis, Ballard, Carter, Rushdie, or Wallace), Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Short Story in English is of interest not only to readers and scholars of the short story, but also to those coming from the fields of literary theory and literary history.

Postmodern Studies; American Literature; 20th Century; Cultural Theory; and Aesthetics.

The concepts of 'Modernism' and 'Postmodernism' constitute the single most dominant issue of twentieth-century literature and culture and are the cause of much debate. In this influential volume, Peter Brooker presents some of the key viewpoints from a variety of major critics and sets these additionally alongside challenging arguments from Third World, Black and Feminist perspectives. His excellent Introduction and detailed headnotes for each section and essay provide an indispensable guide to interpreting the many different opinions, and prove to be valuable contributions in their own right.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.