1000+ Literary Theory MCQs – Part 21: Postmodernism: Lyotard & Baudrillard

1. The term “postmodernism” was used in the 1930s, but its current sense and vogue can be said to have begun with ________’s The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.

1. Jean-François Lyotard
2. L.S. Lowry
3. Jean Baudrillard
4. Mies van der Rohe

2. In Jean-François Lyotard’s works the term “language games”, sometimes also called “phrase regimens”, denotes:

1. I and IV
2. I and III
3. II and IV
4. II and III

3. Who coined the term ‘differend’?

1. Emmanuel Levinas
2. Michel Foucault
3. Jean-François Lyotard
4. Louis Althusser

4. “A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern.” This line is from

1. “Answering the Question: What is the Postmodern?” by Jean-François Lyotard
2. “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes
3. “What is an Author?” by Michel Foucault
4. “Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” by Fredric Jameson

5. Who among the following critics defined the postmodern as ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’?

1. Barthes
2. Derrida
3. Lefebvre
4. Lyotard

6. Which of the following theoretical schools is Jean-François Lyotard most widely associated with?

1. Postmodernism
2. Post-feminism
3. Postcolonial studies
4. Psychoanalytic theory

7. The statement “The age of mega-narratives is over” is attributed to ____.

1. Roland Barthes
2. Jacques Derrida
3. J.F. Lyotard
4. Edward Said

8. Who was the major French theorist of postmodernism and author of the book Simulations?

1. Jean-François Lyotard
2. Stéphane Mallarmé
3. André Gide
4. Jean Baudrillard

9. Jean Baudrillard is associated with what is usually known as ________.

1. The knowledge of the real
2. The gain of the real
3. The loss of the real
4. The forfeit of the real

10. Who wrote the following statement on the mythologised misrepresentation of the United States in Disneyland: “All its [the USA’s] values are exalted here, in miniature and comic-strip form. Embalmed and pacified”?

1. Baudrillard
2. Butler
3. Burke
4. Browning

11. Which of the statements below are true?

1. B, C and D
2. A and C
3. C and D
4. B and C

12. Who among the following proposed that the First Gulf War had never taken place, that it was simply a hyperreal, media-generated spectacle?

1. Richard Rorty
2. Jean-François Lyotard
3. Umberto Eco
4. Jean Baudrillard

13. Which of the following statements are true?

1. 1, 3 and 4 only
2. 1 and 3 only
3. 3 and 4 only
4. 2 and 3 only

14. Who first welcomed us to ‘the desert of the real’?

1. Friedrich Nietzsche
2. Jean Baudrillard
3. Jacques Derrida
4. Jean-François Lyotard

15. In which decade did the term “postmodernism” become current?

1. 1990s
2. 1910s
3. 1980s
4. 1950s

16. What is the name given to the movement that dominated the arts and culture of the first half of the twentieth century?

1. Feminism
2. Historicism
3. Structuralism
4. Modernism

17. Which of the following works of T.S. Eliot is a collage of juxtaposed, incomplete stories, or fragments of stories?

1. The Waste Land
2. Prufrock and Other Observations
3. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
4. Essays Ancient and Modern

18. Which modern architect proclaimed that “decoration is a crime”?

1. Adolf Loos
2. Kurt Schwitters
3. Samuel Beckett
4. Le Corbusier

19. The modern period began with the ________.

1. Mythology
2. Innocence
3. Reason
4. Enlightenment

20. Which of the following is not a feature of postmodernist writing?

1. Pastiche
2. Mixing of genres
3. Linear narrative
4. Multiple narratives

21. Identify the novels in which the novelists employ metafiction:

1. II and IV
2. I and II
3. II and III
4. I and IV

22. Which of the following are features of postmodernism?

1. II, III and IV
2. I, II and III
3. I, III and IV
4. I, II and IV

23. Which of the following is/are correct about postmodernist critics?

1. They foreground fiction and exemplify ‘disappearance of the real’.
2. They foreground irony.
3. They challenge the distinction between high and low cultures.
4. All of the above

24. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like ‘différance’ and ‘hyperreality’ to subvert ____.

1. myths and parables
2. grand narratives and univocity of being
3. critically acceptable knowledge
4. existing social phenomena

25. Postmodernists typically argue all of the following EXCEPT that ____.

1. universalist narratives which attempt to explain the world are invariably false
2. the world is socially constructed in a variety of ways
3. differences of viewpoint should be celebrated
4. grand narratives are useful sources of information