The Routledge Introduction to American Postmodernism

"The concept of postmodernism has been prominent in the scholarly discourse of the past five decades, a fact that might lead a reader to question the need for yet another introduction to it. Nevertheless, Linda Wagner-Martin's work is invaluable to that ongoing discussion because it largely transcends the thorny debate over postmodernism's conceptual and temporal boundaries. Instead, she summarizes a range of ways in which critics have defined postmodernism and traces the applicability of each one through several generations of American literary artists from the late 1950s until the late 2010s. Without ignoring the cultural polemics that surround the term, she succeeds in surveying postmodernism as a vital and multifaceted aesthetic." -- Derek C. Maus, SUNY Potsdam