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Beginnings
Postmodern Tipping Points
Daniel K. Jernigan
Becoming Postmodern
This collection of essays begins with the observation that while other genres (notably, fiction and film) have been thoroughly examined from a postmodern perspective, drama has received relatively little attention concerning its place in the postmodern literary landscape. In Postmodern Drama (1984), Rodney Simard undertakes the first foray into this field, but Simard applies the term postmodern far too loosely, using it as little more than a convenient label with which to explain various forms of experimentation in contemporary theatre. Around the Absurd (1990), edited by Ruby Cohn and Enoch Brater, is subtitled Essays on Modern and Postmodern Drama, and yet in her introduction, Cohn manages to avoid the word postmodern entirely; moreover, only the H. Porter Abbott essay attempts even the briefest definition of the term. Moreover, while Marvin Carlson’s Deathtraps: The Postmodern Comedy Thriller (1993)