Postmodernism is a loose term for a variety of movements that arose within the art world and the university as separate responses to two different understandings of the term “modern”: modernity and modernism. Modernity is the term used by philosophers and historians to designate a historical period ranging from the Renaissance and extending to the early part of the twentieth century It was marked by: a belief in the power of reason, as opposed to faith, for securing progress; the separation of science, morality and art into their own autonomous spheres; and the search for a unifying foundational theory or principle that would capture the universal aspects of existence. Modernism is a term primarily employed within the art world. The American modern movement ran from the 1870s to the late 1950s, and included the paintings of Jackson Pollock, the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, the poetry of Walt Whitman and the choreography of Martha Graham. The movement centered around images of nature and machinery, explorations of the myths and stories of American history, ambivalent feelings about urban versus rural spaces and a desire to break with European dominance. Despite the different senses of the term “modern,” American postmodernists in both the university and the art world shared a number of common features. Leading postmodernist thinkers and artists resisted attempts to classify or label their work as being postmodern or as being part of any type of organized movement. In part this arose because of a skepticism about the possibility of any transcendent, trans-historical, or transcultural truths that could provide a basis for a unified allencompassing theory. As a result there rapidly developed a highly diverse set of theories in the university (e.g. neo-pragmatism, deconstructionism, neo-Marxism, critical legal studies) and in the art world (e.g. pop art, cyberpunk, avant pop, minimalism). Although they were all lumped under the general rubric “postmodernism,” they had significant methodological and theoretical differences about how to replace their predecessors. Both the intellectual and artistic versions of postmodernism began to emerge in the late 1950s and early 1960s, both were influenced by European movements (the artists were influenced by the British pop artists, while the intellectuals were influenced by the French post-structuralists) and both quickly spread from their original source (painting and literary theory) to other fields. Furthermore, both tended to collapse or blur traditional boundaries: sometimes between genres, as in the music of John Zorn and Terry Riley or the journalism of Hunter Thompson, Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe; between academic disciplines as with Camila Paglia and Stanley Fish; or between media, as in the performance art of Laurie Anderson or the theater pieces of Robert Wilson.

Both strains of postmodernism were fascinated with popular culture and its role in society and both challenged the notion of any significant difference between high and low art or between avant-garde and commercial artists.