Pessimism, stoicism
New view of time, unconscious
Break down of commonly held values

Distinction between "high" and "low" art
Elitism
Polysemous discourse
Experiments in form
Naturalism, realism, regionalism, socialist realism
Belief in universality of myth and collective unconscious
Artist as authority
Progressive
Colonizing, hostile to difference
No commonly accepted metaphysical explanations
Freud, Marx,

Text as reflection of perceiving mind
Meaning is subjective
Inability to act, inability to express love
Violence as theme
Unavoidable change
Sense of place, local color

Fascination with time and space

Alienated subjectivity
History as described in text
History reveals knowledge

Unexamined "master" texts with subordinate roles for the "other" (gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc.)

Search for moral foundations

Texts deconstruct themselves rather than provide stable, identifiable meaning
Language becomes subject matter--its implications in human experience
Text always in dynamic state of change; provisional meaning
Suspicions of representation

"A representation does not re-present an 'original'; rather it re-presents that which is always already represented" (Niranjana)

Always working within dominant discourse
Critical revisiting of literary past
Discourse shapes social roles, "reality," human subjectivity
Reality as unrepresentable, no mimesis
Delight in artifice of writing, rather than to make contact with perceived extra-fictional reality

Prefers irony, hybridization, mutation of genres
parody, travesty, pastiche
Merging of popular and "high" cultural forms
--non-fiction novel
--mixed media

Carnivalization, inside out, clowns uncrowning of kings
Interest in performance; culture as performance of role

Fragmentation of subject/ point of view
Loss of psychological unity
Past becomes nostalgia
Feminist deconstruction

Dominance of commercialism
Human powerlessness in face of technology
Increasing fragmentation of contemporary life
Fascination with technology

Rejection of universal reason as foundation for human affairs
Politics of terrorism