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Postmodern vs Contemporary - What's the difference?

postmodern | contemporary |

As adjectives the difference between postmodern and contemporary

is that postmodern is of, relating to, or having the characteristics of postmodernism, especially as represented in art, architecture, literature, science, or philosophy that reacts against an earlier modernism while contemporary is from the same time period, coexistent in time.

As nouns the difference between postmodern and contemporary

is that postmodern is a postmodernist while contemporary is someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.

postmodern

English

(Postmodernism)

Alternative forms

* post-modern

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Of, relating to, or having the characteristics of postmodernism, especially as represented in art, architecture, literature, science, or philosophy that reacts against an earlier modernism.
  • * 1937 , John Q. Stewart, "An Astronomer Looks at the Modern Epoch," The Scientific Monthly , vol. 44, no. 5 (May), page 402,
    • The nearer is a fact to the temporary limits of knoweldge, the more implicated becomes this regression and the more blurred ought to be statement of fact. Bridgman of Harvard recently has emphasized this conclusion, but his postmodern position has as yet made small impression.
  • * 2001 , Kristen Renwick Monroe, "Paradigm Shift: From Rational Choice to Perspective," International Political Science Review , vol. 22, no. 2. (Apr), page 167 n22,
    • What I am objecting to is that aspect of postmodern thought that rejects the idea of any objective reality.
  • * 2005 , Janet R. Barrett, "Planning for Understanding: A Reconceptualized View of the Music Curriculum," Music Educators Journal , vol. 91, no. 4. (Mar), page 25,
    • For an illustration of the differences between the traditional, positivist curriculum and the more postmodern reconceptualized curriculum, see Hanley and Montgomery.

    Derived terms

    * postmodernism * postmodernist * postpostmodern * prepostmodern

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A postmodernist.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2009, date=October 3, author=Claudia La Rocco, title=Where All the World’s a Fashion Show, work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=Trajal Harrell frames his program notes for “Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church (S)” with the potentially academic question, “What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?” }}

    References

    * * * "postmodern" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007) * Oxford English Dictionary , second edition (1989) ----

    contemporary

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • From the same time period, coexistent in time.
  • * Cowley
    • A grove born with himself he sees, / And loves his old contemporary trees.
  • * Strype
    • This king was contemporary with the greatest monarchs of Europe.
  • Modern, of the present age.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
    • , author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 24 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3 , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Men In Black 3 finagles its way out of this predicament by literally resetting the clock with a time-travel premise that makes Will Smith both a contemporary intergalactic cop in the late 1960s and a stranger to Josh Brolin, who plays the younger version of Smith’s stone-faced future partner, Tommy Lee Jones.}}
  • Relatively recent

    • Synonyms

    * contemporaneous

    Antonyms

    * anachronistic: in the wrong time period * archaic

    Noun

    (contemporaries)
  • Someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.
    • ''Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare.
    ''The early mammals inherited the earth by surviving their saurian contemporaries .
  • Something existing at the same time.

    • External links

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