The OP might have an easier time starting with Foucault. I am not under the impression that the OP reads a lot of literature anyway, so he probably won’t get that much mileage out of theory.
Sometimes I think “postmodernism” is really just another word for “lampshade hanging.”
I’m on record as supporting “contemporaryism” as the next great philosophical movement. It’s just so… now. Unfortunately, I think the term is VERY post-modern, so I’m not sure how now it can be when it is still after what was before, which is still going on.
Foucault easier to read than Baudrillard or even Derrida? Mais non! In any case Foucault is really a poststructrualist don’t you think?
Lyotard IMO, would be the best single figure to read as an entree into postmodernism.
And one could always rent The Matrix for a quick fix 
My opinion of post-modernism is that it is a very good name for something.
Absolutely. Not even an arguement to be made there. Foucault is really a captivating writer in most of his translations. Derrida is, to again quote Moe S., “weird for the sake of weird”.
I agree that F is captivating–he tells a lot of good yarns. But (depending on what one is reading) 1) I also find Derrida to be a good read and 2) I find what Foucault is putting across to be more conceptually intricate than Derrida and certainly Baudrillard.
Most of all though I don’t think of Foucault as really a postmodernist (though I’m sure the OP would not have problems with the fit).
This thread would not be complete without a link to Chip Morningstar’s famous essay How to Deconstruct Almost Anything. I am in broad agreement with Morningstar, and hence I also lean in the direction of Curtis, though I find his OP to be exaggerating. The bottom line, as I see it, is that postmodern critics are willing to interpret almost anything as meaning almost anything, and they’ll accept virtually any logical leap in order to get where they want. They’ll pick up some terribly minor details, such as the fact that a character is wearing white socks, and use it to insist that the character is supposed to represent sexual purity and innocence, but later the same character enjoys eating pork, so the author is really making a comment about society’s hypocritical and misogynist attitudes, which is further confirmed by the scene in chapter fifteen where a tulip in the garden is drooping, &c… &c…
(For the record, I have read nothing by Foucault or Derrida, but I did earn a minor in English lit in college, so I did have to read papers explaining why A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an attempt to justify pedophilia or how Jane Austen uses dirt in Pride and Prejudice to criticize imperial capitalism and so forth.
If one examines postmodernist theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject expressionism or conclude that narrativity serves to reinforce capitalism. Therefore, the premise of subcultural dematerialism states that class has significance. Baudrillard suggests the use of expressionism to analyse and modify sexual identity.
The characteristic theme of the works of Spelling is a mythopoetical whole. In a sense, a number of discourses concerning not desituationism, but postdesituationism may be discovered. The subject is interpolated into a neoconceptualist capitalist theory that includes consciousness as a paradox.
If one examines dialectic narrative, one is faced with a choice: either accept expressionism or conclude that government is fundamentally a legal fiction, given that culture is interchangeable with consciousness. Therefore, the main theme of Parry’s[1] critique of Foucaultist power relations is the absurdity, and eventually the economy, of capitalist culture. Sartre promotes the use of neoconceptualist capitalist theory to attack sexism.
So no PoMo isn’t shite.
ITR, I think you and I may have been around this block once before. And why not?
Exactly what have you proved other than that it is possible to fail entirely to write a parody of postmodern critical theory that would succeed in fooling anyone?
For the record though…
Why would any Foucauldian, or any critic of Foucault, argue that “capitalist culture” is absurd?
And to my knowledge (though I could be wrong), Sartre never attacked sexism in his entire life! In fact the idea that he did is quite amusing.
Also for the record I am not a postmodernist. But I do feel as though I really understand what I disagree with.
Folks, you do realize this Curtis fellow is about 11 years old, right?
13 I think he said.
That explains a lot, actually.
I admire your astute analysis.
And can already bandy a term like “loserific”?
Post-Modernism just tells you how to take things apart. It is silent on putting them back together. But knowing how to take things apart is useful.
I look at Post-Modernism a lot like I look at Solipsism - even if I grant that it could be correct, it doesn’t really lead to anything. The whole world of art, literature, etc. is better if we agree that, perhaps, there is something we can know about it.
Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that it was created by people who wanted to make everyone equally pathetic; I don’t think that happens to be true, but let’s really go with it for a moment. Does that make it untrue?
Who cares why they declare there’s no God? Isn’t that irrelevant to the question of whether there is a God? Why bother pointing out someone’s alleged motivation for declaring “there is no absolute morality”? Isn’t the only interesting question whether there is an absolute morality?
I see some post-modern analytical tools to be helpful when deconstructing one’s biases. I think people labor under a misapprehension that a philosophy must provide some sort of answer or way to be in order to be helpful or useful. That’s not the case. Deconstruction is useful in and of itself. It’s up to you to find some way to replace it not to search in the musty tomes of philosophers.
No because if you for instance say “I don’t believe in God because or else He would have made win the Lottery last Saturday” and “I don’t believe in God because He would have saved by daughter’s life if He exists” are two completely different reasons for not believing in God.