Reality Isn't What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern Worl - Hardcover

Anderson, Walter Truett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006250021X ISBN 13: 9780062500212

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1990

Synopsis

Takes a look at the postmodern society we live in, and discusses such topics as Ronald Reagan and New Age religions

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

To Anderson, postmodernism is more than punk rock, Julio Cortazar's stories, deconstruction and John Le Carre's spy novels, though they all manifest its rationale. The post-modernist outlook acknowledges that society is "a social construct of reality," he claims, adding that "post-modernism is globalism"--the emergence of a global culture transcending class, race and nation-state. Within this framework, Anderson ( The Upstart Spring: Esalen and the American Awakening ) discusses a vast range of phenomena: totalitarianism, made-for-television movies, "pseudoevents" like the invasion of Grenada, neo-paganism, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses , camp, New Criticism, Eastern mysticism, etc. He looks into constructivist psychotherapy, in which the therapist acts as editor of the patient's versions of reality. This heady discourse demonstrates that post-modernism, more than a cliche, can serve as an analytical tool in mapping a world still being born.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 006250021X
• ISBN 13: 9780062500212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288