Postmodern Aesthetics Research Articles

Exploring the Barrier between Language and Culture from the Perspective of Postmodernist Aesthetics - Taking the Translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Huang Jinyan and the Translation by Fan Ye as an Example

Focusing on the translations of Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude by Huang Jinyan and Fan Ye, this paper explores how language shapes and reflects cultural differences, thus influencing cross-cultural communication from a postmodernist aesthetic perspective. The opening chapter briefly describes the relevance of postmodern aesthetics to translation studies, with a special focus on the strategies of naturalization and alienation in magical realist translations and their role in conveying cultural connotations. Subsequently, a comparative analysis of the two translations reveals the differences in the translators’ strategies in dealing with the complex symbols and cultural elements of the original work: Fan’s translation tends to alienate, retaining the exotic and magical qualities and preserving the uniqueness of Latin American culture, but it may increase the barriers to comprehension for Chinese readers; Huang’s translation is inclined towards naturalization, which is closer to local reading habits and enhances the readability of the text, but it may diminish the cultural shock and depth of the original text. The core of the article emphasizes that translation is a dual process of cultural selection and re-creation. It requires the translator to strike a balance between preserving the original style and transmitting the cultural essence within the framework of postmodern aesthetics. The article further discusses the crucial role of this balance in enhancing cross-cultural communication and expanding horizons. It also proposes guidelines for future translation practice and research, advocating for a harmonious and symbiotic translation strategy that respects the original work while adapting to the target culture, particularly in the translation of cross-cultural literature.

Postmodern Time and Space. Eco-critical Approaches to Temporal and Spatial Collapse

This article explores the complex intersections of postmodern literature, time-space theory, and eco-criticism, particularly in portraying temporal disruption and spatial collapse amidst current environmental crises. It examines how postmodern literary works challenge the linearity of time and the stability of spatial boundaries in response to the global environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. Through an analysis of critical texts, the study explores ecological degradation as a physical reality and a conceptual issue, fragmenting our perceptions of time and space. Using an eco-critical lens, the article investigates how authors dismantle linear narratives and static settings, instead presenting cyclical or collapsed structures that metaphorically mirror the breakdown of ecosystems and natural rhythms. Focusing on Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, the article critiques the socio-political ramifications of environmental crises and their reflection on postmodern aesthetics. Ultimately, it contends that the fragmentation of time and space in postmodern literature symbolises broader environmental collapse, urging readers to re-evaluate their relationship with nature, time, and space.

Critical Reflections on Hassan Zrizi’s Novel: I shall await you at theThreshold of Hope

This study examines the thematic exploration of social and spatial dynamics in I Shall Await You at the Threshold of Hope by Dr. Hassan Zrizi. The novel presents a decentralized social vision, inspired by the experiences of marginalized individuals. The novel portrays a poignant landscape characterized by suffering and expectation, with recurring motifs of disappearance and the tension between life and death. The author employs the metaphor of the mountain's base to represent the social proletariat in the ancient Roman sense, thereby highlighting a static, hierarchical structure. The narrative arc involves the reintegration of this base with the pinnacle, encouraging reflection on concepts of verticality, horizontality, and transversality. Artistically, the novel adheres to postmodern aesthetics through the fragmentation and re-appropriation of space, confronting the threat of oblivion while offering a message of boundless potential.

L. Dobychin's prose through the prism of postmodern aesthetics

L. Dobychin's prose through the prism of postmodern aesthetics

The motive of writing in A. Zinoviev's novel “Homo sovietikus”: the dynamics of development and the generating effect

The work analyzes the original compositional and plot aspects of A. Zinoviev’s novel “Homo Sovieticus”, among which the motif of writing occupies a special place. The dynamics of the unfolding of the motive is considered in the context of the author-hero problem, which largely determines the creative method of the writer, the genre originality of the novel. The identification of markers of the motive of writing characteristic of the author's and the narrator's hero's intentionality makes it possible to determine the generating effect of its use in the text as a plot-forming one, to differentiate the key lines of the narrative, to detect the influence of the motive on the hierarchy of the system of characters in the novel. The conclusions obtained as a result of the analysis of the text determine and allow us to present the motive of writing as a tool of postmodern aesthetics used by the author-philosopher to comprehend reality in an artistic form.

A FORMAÇÃO EX-CÊNTRICA DE KAMBILI EM HIBISCO ROXO DE CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

Postmodern aesthetics can be understood by its significant deconstructive content and this is observed in the dilution of artistic and literary standards, especially when issues of race, class, gender, or even nation are highlighted. It is through the deconstruction of paradigms that this research is directed, by analyzing the work of the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie entitled Hibisco Roxo (2011) in which she narrates the formation process of the teenager Kambili and the shy resistance cultivated in the girl that in the end points out for their possible emancipation. In this way, we analyze how the process of formation and de-formation occurs in its trajectory, which in addition to deconstructing the standard formation of perfectibility propagated by the traditional literary model, the Bildungsroman (Formation Novel), subverts it to the ex-perspective -centric of a girl, Nigerian and suffering from the sad legacies of colonialism and patriarchy. To do this, we will base ourselves on studies on the Bildungsroman and the chronotopic change undergone by the literary genre in the works of Bakhtin (1992), Cristina Ferreira Pinto (1990) and Wilma Patrícia Maas (2000); on the concept of eccentricity we are guided by the studies of literary critic Linda Hutcheon (1988) and on Emancipation we draw on discussions present in Kant (1783) and Adorno (1995).

(Re)Politicized and (Over)Sexualized―Wild(e) Treatments on Twenty-First-Century Viennese Stages

With Oscar Wilde’s reinvention as “Our Contemporary” and conveniently adaptable icon of postmodern culture in the last two decades, the author’s popular society comedies have evolved into an inexhaustible mine of multiple signification, inviting a broad range of interpretive disambiguation strategies. Inevitably, the diverse textual and dramaturgical schemes of adapting the plays for the twenty-first-century theatre market chiefly rely on what John Stokes has diagnosed as a “quality endemic to the plays: an interplay between performance, audience, and outside world”. Thereby engaging their biographical dimension in a “tangled web” of politics, popular culture, and postmodern aesthetics, contemporary Viennese theatrical readings of Wilde ultimately may be regarded as both reflecting and securing the playwright’s canonical survival.

The Neognostic Myth in Cyberspace

The subject of the study is the functioning of the neognostic myth in cyberspace. Such aspects of the topic as the relationship between religion and the Internet from a non-instrumental point of view on technology are considered in detail. Digital and network technologies are seen as a modern repository of religious beliefs, and not as tools for proselytizing or proclaiming the good news. With the help of an archaeological approach to technical media, the author proposes to determine the deep times of the digital disclosure of technological mysticism, depending on a specific technical materiality characterized by wireless networks and mobile devices. Currently, there are trends in world culture towards the construction of a syncretic myth, which contains elements of the dying Christian paradigm and trends introduced into it from the outside or emerging again. The categorical apparatus developed in the discourse of postmodern aesthetics makes it possible to apply such methods as phenomenological, discursive, hermeneutic and archetypal analysis to the analysis of visual culture. In the study of visual neognostic myth, the concepts of archetypal models, plots, cliches, the theory of the evolution of symbols, general cultural positions of psychoanalysis and the concept of myth are used. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. Gnostic epistemology underlies the imagination of cyberspace. There is a constant in the history of the West that Eric Davis calls "techno-gnosis." In this regard, cybergnosis would be only the latest incarnation of a profound phenomenon. In the world of cyberculture, technognosis manifests itself in hacker ethics, cyberpunk literature, science fiction films and video games. With the help of an archaeological approach to technical media, the deep moments of the digital are determined, showing that there is a technological mysticism in video games that depends on a specific materiality. The new metamodern perception of the world recognizes not only the possibility of perceiving various logical and irrational paradigms of the world order and gaining knowledge about it, but also gives a positive connotation to pluralism itself, when diversity becomes more desirable than truth, which is characteristic of cyberspace. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the research is the basis for the formation of a clear conceptual understanding of the phenomenon of the neognostic myth in its visual form (as opposed to verbal) as a dynamic cultural model generated by digital art strategies and implemented today in media culture.

A Postmodern Twist to the Western Film Tradition in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by The Coen Brothers

Although the Coen brothers had already made films related to the Western genre, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) is a different venture, since they wrote the script of this anthology movie comprising six stories themselves. Besides delving into some of the themes that they have dealt with in their filmography–mortality, ethics, violence, justice, etc.–they also provide the film with a number of postmodern twists that hint at an effort to work through some of the problems posed by the mythology of the American West. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs contains the use of intertextuality across various art forms, a parodic treatment, and the inclusion of unusual perspectives that are all typical of postmodern aesthetics and politics of representation.

“DISGRACE” BY J.M. COETZEE AS A POSTMODERN VARIATION OF THE NOVEL ABOUT A MUSICIAN

“DISGRACE” BY J.M. COETZEE AS A POSTMODERN VARIATION OF THE NOVEL ABOUT A MUSICIAN

ДЕФОРМАЦІЯ ЖАНРУ МЕЛОДРАМИ В УКРАЇНСЬКИЙ ПОСТМОДЕРНІЙ ЛІТЕРАТУРІ: ІРЕН РОЗДОБУДЬКО ТА НАТАЛІЯ ГУРНИЦЬКА

In the conditions of postmodernism, the content and formative components of the melodrama genre (issues, portrayal, narration, plot structure, system of characters, type of protagonist) undergo certain transformations. Today, there is a lack of literary studies devoted to the specifics of the expression of postmodern melodramatism in the works of contemporary writers, namely representatives of “women’s literature” by N. Hurnytska and I. Rozdobudko. Accordingly, there is a need to understand the deformational genre shifts that took place in melodrama under the influence of postmodernist aesthetics. Thus, the relevance of the chosen topic is motivated by the need to analyze the signs of melodramatism in Ukrainian prose and the need to reveal the problem-thematic and genre-stylistic features of melodrama in the context of Ukrainian postmodern literature. The purpose of the work is to study the processes of deformation of the melodrama genre in Ukrainian postmodern literature (based on the works of Irene Rozdobudko and Natalia Hurnytska). Achieving the set goal involves solving a number of tasks, such as: determining the artistic specificity of the melodrama genre; understanding the melodramatic specificity of the works of Irene Rozdobudko (the novel “Once Upon a Time...”) and Natalia Hurnytska (the novel “The Melody of Coffee in the Tonality of Cardamom”) in the context of postmodern aesthetics; elucidation of the peculiarities of representation in both works of typically melodramatic genre features and specifically authorial ones. To achieve the goal, historical-literary, cultural-historical, comparative, hermeneutic, biographical research methods are involved. The development of melodrama at the current stage is determined by postmodern trends in the literary process, as well as the existence of “women’s writing” as an artistic and aesthetic phenomenon, within which the specified genre functions. A comparative analysis of two examples of melodrama in modern Ukrainian literature (the novel “The Melody of Coffee in the Tonality of Cardamom” by Natalia Hurnytska and the novel “Once Upon a Time...” by Irene Rozdobudko) made it possible to conclude that the indicated signs of melodramatism are clearly presented in both works. At the same time, the studied literary works are significantly different from each other, which makes it possible to consider them as certain modifications of the melodrama genre: Natalia Hurnytska’s work is immersed in the historical and cultural atmosphere of the 19th century, and the leading role in it is played by the motive of unequal love of a young girl for a much older, wealthy man; the plot of the novel unfolds around a “love triangle” and has a “happy end”, it is marked by emotional aggravation and the outburst of passions. In the novel by Irene Rozdobudko, autobiographical and confessional motifs are leading, which are written into the modern context related to the life and creative plans of the author and their implementation. At the same time, this work raises a significant range of problems related to selfrealization, achieving a set goal, success and failure, creative activity, the transience of human life, etc. Accordingly, the heroine of the novel by Irene Rozdobudko appears more diverse, while the interests of the heroine of the novel by N. Hurnytska are limited to marriage and children. Therefore, the evolutionary changes experienced by the genre of melodrama in the 21st century are characterized by the loss of established melodramatic features (excessive sharpness of the plot, bright contrast, schematic character images, the theme of the struggle between good and evil disappear); a new – postmodern – angle of understanding the traditional thematic and stylistic aspects of the melodramatic genre: immersion in private life, themes of love and marriage, sentimentality and heightened emotionality; strengthening of psychologism in understanding the images of the characters; actualization of philosophical and confessional motives. There is a shift in emphasis from dialogues to internal monologues, from plot vicissitudes to character images (there is an emphasis on character images, in particular, female rebels functioning within “formulaic” plots and situations). The melodramatic genre acquires pronounced features of postmodern aesthetics. The type of orphan heroine traditional for melodrama is transformed into the type of “absurd heroine-rebel woman” characteristic of the postmodern aesthetic paradigm, the final “happy end” gives way to the variability of the denouement traditional for postmodernism. The canonical genre structure of melodrama is destroyed as a result of the infiltration of elements of postmodern poetics – genre eclecticism (synthesis of melodrama with everyday and psychological drama), intertextual connections, intermediality (features of “musicality” and “cinematography” of the style), irony and playing with the reader.

DIE REZEPTION DER MARGINALITÄT IN DER POSTMODERNEN ÄSTHETIK: PATRICK SÜSKINDS VISION

The purpose of the article is to trace the fictional features of the reception of marginality through the prism of social communication of the main characters in Patrik Süskind`s texts “Der Kontrabass”, “Das Parfüm”, “Die Taube”, “Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer”. The task is to find out the signs of marginalization of the main characters, to understand their symbolic essence, to determine the triggers that provoked the “borderline” state of a person, and the literary techniques used by the author to reveal the problem of marginality. Historical-literary, cultural-historical, hermeneutic, comparative research methods, sociological approach in the study of marginality were used in this investigation. The concept of “marginality” is interpreted as the presence of an individual in a borderline, peripheral state in relation to other social or professional communities. In the works of Patrick Süskind, within the framework of postmodern aesthetics, a type of marginal hero is invented, and some variations of him are built. The key motif in reproducing the mechanism of marginalization of characters in P. Süskind`s stories is the motif of loneliness in its various manifestations: the seclusion of the hero, his alienation from society, sociophobe. It was found that the image of a marginal hero is not typical, Süskind’s characters are different: the contrabass player is a procrastinator, the perfumer Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a brilliant criminal, the bank guard Jonathan Noel is a modernized image of a “man in a case”, the eccentric traveler Herr Sommer is a sociophobe. The last literary character is open to the world (three other characters can be described as “recluses”). The image of Grenouille is a simulacrum, and as for other literary characters, readers can find their prototypes in real life. It is emphasized that the author forces readers to look at the problem of marginality in a new way: these are not only scum but also creative people who somehow ended up in the peripheral state of a certain professional or social community. Such creative natures appeared in Süskind’s texts as a contrabass player and a perfumer – in order to clarify the mechanism and features of their marginalization, the author reconstructed the professional environment in the historical context in detail. The author`s reproduction of the specifics of the behavior of marginal heroes is traced: from mental suffering to suicide, with an emphasis on determining the triggers that provoked suicide. The analysis of Süskind’s works shows that the extreme forms of marginalization of literary characters caused the psychological trauma experienced by the characters. The writer is guided by deep knowledge of psychology, in particular, the theory of psychoanalysis, the phenomenon of procrastination, and suicidal behavior. The article decodes the socio-historical background, which is present as a dotted line in each of Patrick Süskind’s stories. They take place in Germany and France in the second half of the 20th century (in the novel “Perfume” – in the French city of the 18th century). Undoubtedly, the author, who is apolitical in the public sphere, consistently condemns the war, Nazism and its manifestations in all his texts. P. Süskind posed to the readers numerous questions relevant to German society: overcoming the legacy of Nazism, for instance, in music, the impact of the Holocaust on the psyche and fate of its victims, re-evaluation of the value system and the role of art in it. Such fictional techniques of postmodernism as the “multilayering” of the texts, their open ending, irony, parody, allusions, the reception of binary oppositions, the motif of energy vampirism, materialism, the blurring of genre boundaries, etc. made it possible to realize author’s ideas.

Philosophy and Aesthetics of Postmodernism in V. Erofeev's poem "Moscow-Petushki"

Philosophy and Aesthetics of Postmodernism in V. Erofeev's poem "Moscow-Petushki"

Тема творчества и образ художника в повести Исы Капаева «Синие снега»

The article delves into the exploration of the development of the theme of creativity and the por-trayal of the author-artist in the story titled "Blue Snows" by the Nogai writer, Isa Kapaev. It recog-nizes that the writer's creative search is conducted through the lens of the postmodernist concept, drawing from the experiences of conceptualization of this theme in global, Russian, and national literature. Within the body of the author's works, this theme serves as a recurring motif, with the im-age of the artist embodying one of its central aspects. The article showcases this thesis by referenc-ing I. Kapaev's works, which reflect the profound drama encompassing the personal and creative consciousness of the protagonist named Karamov – an alter ego of the writer himself. The destiny of the artist Aidar Karamov, the protagonist in the story "Blue Snows," inter-twines with the life stories of other Karamovs, individuals within the realm of art and the heroes present in I. Kapaev's works during the twilight of the Soviet era as well as the transitional decades between the 20th and 21st centuries. The author's conceptual vision and the means through which it is executed in the story are in-terpreted within the framework of postmodernist aesthetics and poetics, utilizing hermeneutic, se-miotic, and typological approaches. Emphasis is placed on how the evolution and rebirth of the pro-tagonist's consciousness, as described by the author, lend themselves to a profound contemplation of the contemporary challenges faced by art: the quest for the ideal, the significance of maintaining a connection with the cultural soil from which true inspiration springs. Furthermore, the article explores the theme of reverence towards art, the nurturing attitude towards talents, the unwavering dedication to one's calling, and the resistance against the tempta-tions of prioritizing material wealth over the attainment of the ideal through the creative process. As the foundation for analysis, the article draws upon the text of the aforementioned story under scrutiny, as well as other works by I. Kapayev composed in their original language. Transla-tions into Russian were employed as a reference for quotations..

“You left a void that we will never be able to fill”: The legacy of Edmond Amran El Maleh in a contemporary Moroccan novella

The sudden depart of a large portion of the Moroccan Jewish population between 1948 and 1967 left a void in Moroccan society, to the extent that some scholars account for the existence of a “double trauma” – a trauma for both those who left for Israel and the Moroccan society at large. This profound social wound has never healed. The Moroccan Jewish intellectual Edmond Amran El Maleh (1917-2010) is the hero of the novella Aḥǧiyat Idmūn ʿAmrān al-Māliḥ (The riddle of Edmond Amran El Maleh, 2020) by Mohammed Said Hjiouij, which this article analyses. In this novella, Hjiouij stages the double trauma of Jewish and Muslim Moroccans by giving voice to the liminal character of El Maleh, a harsh critic of Zionism and French colonial ideology. A metaphor for the marginal writer and a symbol of collective trauma, the figure of El Maleh is re-employed and loaded with new functions and meanings in a contemporary work of fiction with a post-modern aesthetics.

Features of Digital Public Art of the Twenty-First Century: Art of Physical and Virtual Space

The purpose of the article is to identify the peculiarities of contemporary practices of digital public art as one of the new forms of art of the twenty-first century that actively interacts with urban space. Research methodology. The method of systematic analysis and synthesis (to consider digital public art practices as part of contemporary art), the method of cultural and historical analysis (to study the trends in the development of public art at the early twenty-first century), the typological method and the method of comparative analysis (to identify the features and typology of digital public art practices, as well as to determine their differences). Scientific novelty. Contemporary digital practices of public art are studied. Artistic interventions of media art in public space as a means of social intervention are considered. On the basis of comparative analysis, the differences between the practices of digital public art as an independent subgenre of public art created, managed, and distributed in cyberspace are revealed. Conclusions. Digital public art is a unique form of contemporary art existence outside the artistic infrastructure, which is created and disseminated in public space through cyber technologies in order to problematise various topical issues of both the art of the early twenty-first century and the space in which it is presented. At the present stage, digital public art objects are an integral part of the urban space. Despite the availability of new technical means of presentation, public art remains a connection with conceptual issues (identity creation and inclusive community participation). Digital practices of public art in line with the aesthetics of postmodernism, according to which it is important to overcome the vacuum, a certain isolation of artistic practice, and to understand ontological states. Demonstrating the idea of accessibility of the cultural collage of the contemporary space, they illustrate the tendency of transgressive processes of the boundaries of cultural form, the convergence of mass and elitist culture. The main characteristics of digital practices of public art are interactivity, technology, dynamism, attractiveness, and sociality.

Choreographical Culture of Ukraine and Creativity of Radu Poklitaru in Theoretical Discourse

The purpose of the article is to study the Ukrainian choreographic culture in the field of theoretical developments with a focus on the work of Radu Poklitaru and his theatre. The research methodology is based on the application of general scientific methods, namely, systematic analysis, which allowed for an analytical review of the problems of contemporary choreography in Ukraine and the world and to study the contribution of Ukrainian choreographers to the process of formation and development of choreographic culture and art in Ukraine. The outline of time dimensions, substantiation of internal correlations and transformations in the development of contemporary choreography required the use of comparative historical and chronological methods. The method of structural-functional analysis helped to identify specific aspects of the functioning of contemporary dance in the cultural space. Comparative analysis was used to justify changes in the classical art of dance and to prioritise traditions or innovations. The cultural approach was used to analyse the process in question and to determine its role in the overall cultural and artistic process. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the hermeneutic interpretation and generalisation of the significant contribution of Ukrainian artists to the development of choreographic culture and art, in particular, contemporary dance, on the example of Radu Poklitaru’s work and the proof that Ukrainian choreographic culture and art correlate with global processes, being determined by cultural and social factors. Conclusions. On the basis of the scientific and theoretical analysis, it has been determined that Ukrainian choreographic culture is actively studied at the theoretical level by choreographers (O. Gres, Y. Kovalenko, A. Korol, M. Korostyliova, A. Pidlypska, O. Plakhotniuk, M. Pohrebniak, D. Sharykov, E. Yanina-Ledovska) and art historians (O. Afonina, I. Horbunova, I. Drach, O. Zavialova, H. Polianska, Yu. Stanishevskyi, O. Chepalov). The main areas of research of scholars are contemporary dance, postmodern aesthetics, which influences the development of choreographers' thoughts, appeal to the reinterpretation of the classics. This is evidenced by the creative work of Radu Poklitaru, a prominent representative of choreographic culture and art. His ballets are considered in the scientific discourse of modern dance, contemporary choreography in Ukraine and the world in terms of his contribution to this process and the development of choreographic art and culture.
 Key words: choreography, dance, ballet, theatre, performing arts, postmodernism, choreographic culture, Radu Poklitaru.

Time recovered: Kirill Ryabov and metamodernism

Following an analysis of Kirill Ryabov’s works published in the years 2021 and 2022, the author finds that in Ryabov’s metamodernist aesthetic paradigm the modernist communicative model is preserved alongside some concepts of postmodernist aesthetics. Modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism appear as three stages of the single itinerary with a goal of overcoming the logic of binary oppositions and achieving heteroglossia and dialogue (M. Bakhtin) as a new artistic structure. Through the re-introduction of the depth of emotion and the humanistic dimension, metamodernism strives to comprehend the systemic integrity of the universe. The same agenda characterises Ryabov’s books which show people in their systemic relationships with their own egos, society, the world, and God. The aesthetics of Ryabov’s metamodernist text is defined by such parameters as the abandonment of a clearcut opinion of the author or the protagonist in favour of a dialogue with the reader, reliance on a myth, the concept of a ‘void,’ minimalism, experimentation with the word’s inner form, and the use of mass literature techniques.

The Unorthodox Jukebox of the Picaresque Young Girl Phenomenon: An amelioration of subsumable genres

We live in a dodecahedron-structured cybernetic enmeshment of technology running through an extension of media convergence. In this context, the psychic fragmentation of a postmodern aesthetic is radically splintered and spreadeagled. The reflexivity praxis, embedded in a multisensory milieu navigating strange peregrinations (from modernity to postmodernity to post-post modernity), is tearing apart the current fabric, particularly through cinematic endeavors. Therefore, cinema hyphenates the piquant postmodernist aesthetics by orchestrating fragmentation, hyperkinetic synergy, anachronistic mode, pastiche, meta narratives, beats of simulacrum, and the dementia praecox of mutagenicity, to name a few. Films like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022), directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, encapsulate the current vertiginous reality through a metaverse of careening camera movement, frenetic editing, and the pulverization of the fractured self. A new neologism called “transgene” gets illustrated in the film, wherein multiple genre textures (science fiction, comic book aesthetic, melodrama, comedy, action, and an LGBTQ troupe) are indicated through singular sequences or even images in the film. This film clearly obfuscates the clarity of genre iconicity and exhibits a continuum of energy (flowing), but an interesting embodiment of the young girl concept through the character of Jobu Tupaki provides us with a structure in which postmodernism, transgene, and the young girl get encapsulated. The nihilistic and sassy daughter of Evelyn Wang has been fractured across realities of the metaverse, which renders her a powerful universal being bent on causing chaos and destruction. I shall attempt to outline the major configurations and reconceptualizations of several cinematic genres while foregrounding the plane of reality in which postmodernist cinema transforms into a trans-genre or rather undergoes a metamorphosis into a trans-genre. Additionally, it explores the phenomenon of a young girl functioning as a sublime and spectral obsequiousness amalgamated into the infrastructure of postmodernism, resulting in the atomization of trans-genres showcasing everything, everywhere, all at once. Furthermore, the confluence of these genre aesthetics prepares a bouillabaisse that embodies several configurations of young girls or the becoming of young girls (by all genders and ages) through an apocalyptic dread, permeable brain leaks, and a genre mix.

THE AESTHETICS OF POSTMODERNISM: A CRITICAL REVIEW

This study extrapolates the aesthetics of postmodernism as a theoretical category. In this connection, the study briefly examines the problematics of definition associated with the concept essentially because of its ambivalent nature and paradoxical nexus with its root precursor, modernism. The study then distils some of the main features and purviews of postmodernism by major theorists like Jean-FracoisLyotard and Jean Baudrillard, as well as some key arguments in connection with the concept by scholars like Frederick Jameson, Terry Eagleton, Christopher Norris, Alan Sokal, and Jean Bricmont. The study posits that such contestations on the concept is show that it is a worthy site for intellectual engagements and a viable tool for textual interpretation and analysis.