Postmodernism as conjuncture

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Konjunktūra; Postmodernizmas; Postsovietinė lietuvių literatūra; Teorinės įžvalgos; Šiuolaikinė lietuvių literatūra; Conjuncture; Contemporary Lithuanian Literature; Post-soviet Lithuanian literature; Postmodernism; Theoretical representations.

ENThe following article focuses on problematic dimensions of literary postmodernism and its theoretical representations, the concept of postmodernism, and the literary field in post-Communist Lithuania. The author of the article assumes that an attempt to discuss literary postmodernism as a purely literary phenomenon, based on style, structure, and certain literary techniques (this tendency is apparent in Lithuania) leads to a dilemma. Interpreting postmodernism as a socio-cultural phenomenon, which is initially recognized in the ideological level of the text, Dalia Satkauskytė raises the questions, whether post-Communist society created the conditions where the phenomenon, traditionally related to consumer society, is dominant. In other words, the following question is posed: what literary phenomenon forms when post-Communist realities and Western literary styles meet? The second part of the article is dedicated to a discourse about the dynamics of the field (or system) of literature. From this perspective, the formerly revolutionary nature of postmodernism is interpreted as as having tranformed into a conjuncture, as adapting to market demads by fulfilling reader's expectations. In becoming too predictable (this occurs with the majority of dominant cultural phenomena), it creates conditions for new trends. It would be difficult to identify them specifically, though many are tied to the return of subjectivism, even humanism, and aesthetic minimalism. [From the publication]

• Apie pamėklinę būtį : ir kiti etiudai / Arūnas Sverdiolas. Vilnius : Baltos lankos, 2006. 262 p.
• Dioniso sugrįžimas : chtoniškumas, postmodernizmas, tyla / Eugenijus Ališanka. Vilnius : Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla, 2001. 206 p.