Shapinskaya, E. N. Images of the Past in Post-Modernism Culture: Representation or Pastiche?

Abstract: The article considers the problem of representation of the past in post-modernism culture. In those times the most famous form of addressing to the past was the pastiche which is, in fact, a mimicry that reminds of the past and does not have any historical referents. Based on Fredric Jameson’s theory of post-modernism, the author analyzes a series of cultural texts and modern practices showing the loss of the feeling of history in the culture of postmodernism while popularization of historical plots in mass culture, especially in screen arts. Post-modernism examples of historical art include the usage of such instruments as combination of fragments from different epochs and presence of both real and fi ctional characters. One of the forms of such practices in art is the interpretation of classical plots deprived of any temporal features. The author admits that post-modernistic interpretation of history is rather contradictory and concludes that the desire to understand the past is quite typical for ‘post-culture’ human despite all the changes in interpretation of history which happened at the end o the 20th – beginning of the 21st centuries.

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