On the Back Cover
A Primer to Postmodernity introduces the general reader to an emerging "postmodern" world order by giving us "just the facts" through contemporary cultural lenses. Using TV shows, political talk shows, radio call-in shows, and popular film as points of reference, the focus is not on postmodernism as a movement in art, architecture and literature, but on postmodernity as the most wide-ranging and provocative change in how we look at the world since the Enlightenment.
Natoli creates a postmodern environment in his text by incorporating starship Captain Becark and Commander Deja as our guides and interlocutors of the postmodern debate. they interrupt the text by asking questions where the reader might get stuck. They shift focus, counter arguments, deflate rhetoric, and add to the multi-voiced exposition of the Primer, dismantling anyone's hope of ever again providing the uninterrupted, monologic catechisms of modernity. This text performs postmodernity.
Before going to the primary readings of postmodern theorists, students and general readers should begin with A Primer to Postmodernity is inherently so hard to define.
About the Author
Joseph Natoli teaches at the Centre for Integrative Studies at Michigan State University. He is co-series editor of "Postmodern Culture," a series published by the State University of New York Press.
