When people ask me the obligatory "What's your major?" question in polite conversation, I reply with the obvious "English Lit" and dodge the requisite"So i guess you want to be a high-school teacher" by throwing out "...and I want to study postmodern literary theory". The reference to postmodernism tends to throw most people off, either because they think the term is a synonym for contemporary literary theory and ask me if I'm into Chuck Palahniuk, or they just plain don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I can't blame them. I myself was exposed to postmodernism in a haphazard way, with ambiguous descriptions of relativity and a world without absolutes in some of my second year tutorials. It seemed, at the time, as though everyone had their own individual definition of postmodernism, and the subsequent lack of boundaries made for a loose study of disjointed characteristics that really did nothing to enlighten me. I even recall my Apocalyptic Science Fiction T.A. mentioning that he had no idea what postmodernism was. I can't believe that douchebag marked my papers...
It wasn't until late in my second year that I stumbled upon Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and began my love affair with all things postmodern. At the time, I was obsessed with the avant-garde modernist movements of the early 20th century, with Tristan Tzara and Stephane Mallarme a typical tag-team in my literary repertoire. All the absurdity and parody of the avant-garde, though modern to my naive mind, did not prepare me for the ultra modern multiplicity of perspectives, fragmentation, and nihilistic parody of Pynchon. Since then, I've been entirely insatiable. Characterized by fragmentation, pastiche, temporal disorder, disassociation, paranoia and cyclicality, postmodern literature has captured, for me, the zeitgeist of my time; of an accelerated Information Age without boundaries or concrete cultural absolutes.
Though it all sounds sweet and romantic, my relationship with postmodernism is, well, very postmodern. The nature of absolute relativity creates a difficult task for quantifying postmodernism as an artistic and theoretical movement. Living in postmodernity gives me a relatable perspective, but I struggle with justifying these new concepts of neo-pragmatism and the death of correspondence theories of truth to my logical self. Richard Rorty's call for abandonment of all truth claims just seems almost too hardcore, and truthfully, scares the shit out of me. The implications of embracing postmodern philosophy are intensely nihilistic. I guess, in a way, I'm almost like that lame T.A. from Apocalyptic Science Fiction. I can't really say, in any concise way, how postmodernism is feasible or how it manifests itself in my everyday life; i can only observe what it does, work on forming my personal theory, and describe how it moves within the literature that I've come to love. The pursuit of a better understanding, though, lead me to spend the last few months with Jean Baudrillard, Francis Fukuyama, Jean Francois Lyotard, and Richard Rorty, and is subsequently leading me to Grad school. It's been a party, and I'm sure it will be for the next few years. There is so much to explore, and even more, I believe, to uncover. That's where this zine comes in, I guess. What better way is there to highlight the multiplicity of perspectives in postmodern Toronto than through an honest ground-level hyperreal digital documentation of the creative expression of those living in postmodernity?
Though not everything contemporary is postmodern, growing up in the present-day western world situates us in a cultural climate where we've seen the absolutes of our past wither away into a blur of secular madness and capitalism. As a result, we all collectively understand that there really isn't a collective understanding of anything anymore. But, maybe, through the analysis and interpretation of the human expression, that is, the art and literature produced by postmodern artists, we can come to better understand the now. It sounds insane, but I swear it's not chaos. It's just the nature of postmodernity.
