Editing Postmodernism (section)

====In literary and architectural theory====
[[File:Creeley.jpg|thumb|The poet Robert Creeley in 1972]]
According to Hans Bertens and [[Perry Anderson]], the [[Black Mountain poets]] [[Charles Olson]] and [[Robert Creeley]] first introduced the term "postmodern" in its current sense during the 1950s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Perry |title=The Origins of Postmodernity |date=1998 |publisher=Verso |pages=6–12}}</ref>{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}
Their stance against modernist poetry – and Olson's [[Heideggerian]] orientation – were influential in the identification of postmodernism as a polemical position opposed to the [[rationalism|rationalist]] values championed by the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] project.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=19}}

During the 1960s, this affirmative use gave way to a pejorative use by the [[New Left]], who used it to describe a waning commitment among youth to the political ideals [[socialism]] and [[communism]].{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}} The literary critic [[Irving Howe]], for instance, denounced postmodern literature for being content to merely reflect, rather than actively attempt to refashion, what he saw as the "increasingly shapeless" character of contemporary society.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|page=21}}{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}

In the 1970s, this changed again, largely under the influence of the literary critic [[Ihab Hassan]]'s large-scale survey of works that he said could no longer be called modern. Taking the Black Mountain poets an exemplary instance of the new postmodern type, Hassan celebrates its [[Nietzschean]] playfulness and cheerfully anarchic spirit, which he sets off against the high seriousness of modernism.{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=24}}

(Yet, from another perspective, [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s attack on Western philosophy and [[Martin Heidegger]]'s critique of metaphysics posed deep theoretical problems not necessarily a cause for aesthetic celebration. Their further influence on the conversation about postmodernism, however, would be largely mediated by French [[poststructuralism]].{{sfn|Best|Kellner|1991|pages=22–23}})

If literature were at the center of the discussion in the 1970s, architecture was at the center in the 1980s.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=12}} The architectural theorist [[Charles Jencks]], in particular, connected the artistic [[avant-garde]] to social change in a way that captured attention outside of academia.{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}} Jenckes, much influenced by the American architect [[Robert Venturi]],{{sfn|Bertens|1995|page=55}} celebrated a plurality of forms and encourages participation and active engagement with the local context of the built environment.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|pages=59–60}} He presented this as in opposition to the "authoritarian style" of International Modernism.{{sfn|Connor|2013|p=567}}