Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Proto-Postmodernism: Constructing Postmodern Ethics Through Cold War Literature And Theory, Rock Lamanna

Departmental Honors Projects

While postmodern theory and literature is typically viewed as either “anti-humanist” or a rejection of Humanism, this essay reconsiders these assumptions by exploring ethical questions in early postmodern novels and theory, referred to as “proto-postmodernism.” For proto-postmodernists such as Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Heller, and Kurt Vonnegut, Humanism—the ethical framework that asserts a centered “self” and a collective “metanarrative” of human progress—causes and legitimates violence, yet in their theories and literature, they promote the humanist value of dignity in their critiques of modern ethics and politics. To examine this hybrid stance toward Humanism, the first section situates …