simple definition
Michael Bruce McDonald
>
>Michele wrote:
>
>>A newcomer to this topic, I would like people to respond with a simple
>>definition of postmodernism, and an opinion on its equatability with
>>deconstruction.
>>Thanks for the thoughts...
>>Michele
>
>This has been tried often by many people, and rarely succeeds.
>
>Why the hell am I trying, then, if only 'cause I'm a glutton for punishment.
>
>
>Well, here goes.
>
>Rule number one:
>PM does not equal deconstruction. Deconstruction does not equal PM.
>
>Deconstruction is the culmination of a certain track of modernist
>(enlightenment) thought. I assume that you knwo more about Decon than PM so
>won't go into details other than decon being the "discovery" of the
>emptiness at the centre of any symbolic discourse (or the rooting out of the
>political implications and presumptions that hide that core of nothing.).
Sorry if this seems like a quibble, because it really isn't: Derrida
argues in "Structure, Sign, and Play . . ." that the center is never
where one supposes it to be. Thus the center supposed to anchor discourse
cannot be found *in* discourse, for the movement of discursivity is that
of *differance*: the differences within, and inherent to language forever
defer the (supposed) moment at which we arrive at the self-replete center,
the sender, the transcendental signified whose posited presence is
necessary for the belief in closure, the ending sanctified by that central
sender.
It is *most* important to recognize that Derrida is *not* saying that the
center does not exist, or that one "finds" even mere (simple?) "emptiness"
at the center of "any symbolic discourse"; the point is rather that *the*
point is always already elsewhere. But fear not, for in this pointed
pointlessness we have forever always begun to dance, quite apart from old
William Butler's problem (and the Eagles'!) telling the dancer from the
dance.
As for the unsettling equation-in-the-guise-of-parethetical-accretion
{"modernist (enlightenment)"} attribution in the quoted paragraph, I'm
quite at a loss at how even to begin to unpack (it).
Sweets for the sweet,
Michael McDonald
>
>PM is the literal application of the "discovery" of the emptiness at the
>core of any symbolic system.
>
>For a good summarising of art and postmodernism start with a collection
>called _Art_After_Modernism_ then go to _On_the_Museum's_Ruins_ by Douglas
>Crimp. From there, go directly into post-colonial thought, do not pass
>Jameson, try Hommi Bhabha instead.
>
>--
>.......................................................................
>.......................Michael.Maranda..................................
>........................................mm017g@uhura.cc.rochester.edu....
>........................................................................
NAME Daniel A. Rigney iii
>In article <2j6ci6$2...@news.duke.edu> mne...@north2.acpub.duke.edu (Michele Nealen) writes:
>>A newcomer to this topic, I would like people to respond with a simple
>>definition of postmodernism, and an opinion on its equatability with
>>deconstruction.
>
>I'd sure like to hear about it. I like to think of it as being a process
>whereby impotent metaphysical ideas are taken apart, examined, and put back
>together provisionally in more aesthetic, less totalitarian ways. But the
>word can also mean other things, too, like the way society feels about itself
>today. In that sense, postmodernism would be the feeling that there is no
>universal ideology, and that the future is no longer well-defined, that we are
>not progressing toward some goal as if we were reading a book from
>cover-to-cover. If anyone has any better definitions, I'd like to hear them.
>
>-----------------------------
>Christopher Ogden
>ogd...@caedm.et.byu.edu
i don't know about anyone else here, but simple definitions always seem
inadequate, shallow or forced. i personally DONT like to see simple definitions
as their claims to self-evidence are circular and exclusive. teflon logic.
it don't stick.
dan rigney
Tim Dugan
v092...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (NAME "Daniel A. Rigney iii") writes...
>In article <69%@byu.edu>, OGD...@caedm.et.byu.edu (Christopher Ogden) writes...
>>In article <2j6ci6$2...@news.duke.edu>
>>mne...@north2.acpub.duke.edu (Michele Nealen) writes:
>>>A newcomer to this topic, I would like people to respond with a simple
>>>definition of postmodernism, and an opinion on its equatability with
>>>deconstruction.
>>
>>I don't think there is a simple definition of postmodernism. If there is,
>>I'd sure like to hear about it. I like to think of it as being a process
>>whereby impotent metaphysical ideas are taken apart, examined, and put back
>>together provisionally in more aesthetic, less totalitarian ways. But the
>>word can also mean other things, too, like the way society feels about itself
>>today. In that sense, postmodernism would be the feeling that there is no
>>universal ideology, and that the future is no longer well-defined, that we are
>>not progressing toward some goal as if we were reading a book from
>>cover-to-cover. If anyone has any better definitions, I'd like to hear them.
>>
>>-----------------------------
>
>inadequate, shallow or forced. i personally DONT like to see simple definitions
>as their claims to self-evidence are circular and exclusive. teflon logic.
>it don't stick.
>
I don't think there is a consensus here.
Any any case, here's my take on the subject: Post Modernism is a reaction to
Modernism. Modernism is a literary and artistic movement that reflected
human thoughts after the 1st world war and the depression and the introduction
of Freudian thought. It involved questioning knowledge and authority.
Postmodernism goes further in that it involves questioning reality. PM
literature often contains themes relating to what is reality what is
the structure not of knowledge but of the universe or universes. Of course,
there is even more to it than that. Some PM authors are Nabakov, Fuentes,
Dellilo, Pynchon. Perhaps someone could suggest some movies that
are also.
As an anology, one author on PM says that detective works are the "low art"
of Modernist literature and science fiction is the equivalent for PM.
-tbd
Gordon Fitch
| Any any case, here's my take on the subject: Post Modernism is a reaction to
| Modernism. Modernism is a literary and artistic movement that reflected
| human thoughts after the 1st world war and the depression and the introduction
| of Freudian thought. It involved questioning knowledge and authority.
There's also the the fact of the classicization of
Modernism, which took place in the 1940s and '50s -- for
instance, the almost total dominance of abstract
expressionism in painting. As classicization is a procedure
of confining and extruding, something was extruded, and by
the mid-1950s most of the vitality was on the outside rather
than the inside of the boundary. I think this classiciza-
tion had a lot to do with the appearance of the present
intellectual construction "postmodern" because if you go
back to the early part of the century, you see a lot of
experiments and initiatives, at least in the artistic world,
that look like what we call "postmodern" today.
I believe the classicization of Modernism had a political
meaning: it was an effort by the bourgeoisie to control and
regulate a fundamentally anarchic, and thus (to them)
dangerous process. Naturally, it failed. Poor
bourgeoisie.
| Postmodernism goes further in that it involves questioning reality. PM
| literature often contains themes relating to what is reality what is
| the structure not of knowledge but of the universe or universes. Of course,
| there is even more to it than that. Some PM authors are Nabakov, Fuentes,
| Dellilo, Pynchon. Perhaps someone could suggest some movies that
| are also.
The ideas of _reality_ are political.
| As an anology, one author on PM says that detective works are the "low art"
| of Modernist literature and science fiction is the equivalent for PM.
Who is this author? I like the line.
--
)*( Gordon Fitch )*( g...@panix.com )*(
NAME Daniel A. Rigney iii
>CSCI...@CL.UH.EDU:
>
>| As an anology, one author on PM says that detective works are the "low art"
>| of Modernist literature and science fiction is the equivalent for PM.
>
>Who is this author? I like the line.
>--
>
> )*( Gordon Fitch )*( g...@panix.com )*(
me too, sounds like Jameson. spanos has a great essay written in the 70's
about notions of the detective which was reprinted in REPITITIONS
dan rigney
Tim Dugan
I think it was Bryan McHale in the book _Postmodernist Fiction_. (If that's
not right, it was in a book called _Elipse of Uncertainty_ by ??.)
-tim d.
Tim Dugan
>v092...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (NAME "Daniel A. Rigney iii") writes...
>>In article <2jd8ti$q...@panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes...
>>>CSCI...@CL.UH.EDU:
>>>
>>>| As an anology, one author on PM says that detective works are the "low art"
>>>| of Modernist literature and science fiction is the equivalent for PM.
>>>
>>>Who is this author? I like the line.
>>>--
Here's a more specific quote from _Postmodernist Fiction_ by Brian McHale,
chapter 4 "Worlds in Collision":
Science fiction, like postmodernist fiction, is governed by the
ontological dominant. Indeed, it is perhaps _the_ ontological
genre _par excellence_. We can think of science fiction as
postmodernism's noncanonized or "low art" double, its sister-genre
in the same sense that the popular detective thriller is modernist
fiction's sister-genre. ...
McHale use's the term "dominant" as defined something in a quote in
his book:
The dominant may be defined as a focusing component of a work of
art: it rules, determines, transforms the remaining components.
It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure
... a poetic work [is] a structured system, a regularly ordered
hierarchical set of artistic devices. Poetic evolution is a shift
in this heirarchy. ... The image of ... literary history substantially
changes; it becomes incomparably richer and at the same time more
monolithic,more synthetic and ordered, than were the _membra
disjecta_ of previous literary scholarship.
He then takes several pages to explain this.
Then he then says:
...the dominant of moderist fiction is _epistemological_...
And, later:
...the dominant of postmodernist fiction is _ontological_.
The book discusses a lot of things that I never see mentioned in this
newsgroup. Does anyone out there read any of these so-called PM
authors (like Fuentes, Nabakov, Pynchon, Becket, ...)? Does anybody
out there watch any film that might be considered PM-ish?
Well?
-tbd
NAME Daniel A. Rigney iii
>>In article <CL0qs...@acsu.buffalo.edu>,
>>v092...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (NAME "Daniel A. Rigney iii") writes...
>>>In article <2jd8ti$q...@panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes...
>>>>CSCI...@CL.UH.EDU:
>>>>
>>>>| As an anology, one author on PM says that detective works are the "low art"
>>>>| of Modernist literature and science fiction is the equivalent for PM.
>>>>
>>>>Who is this author? I like the line.
>>>>--
>
>Here's a more specific quote from _Postmodernist Fiction_ by Brian McHale,
>chapter 4 "Worlds in Collision":
>
> Science fiction, like postmodernist fiction, is governed by the
> ontological dominant. Indeed, it is perhaps _the_ ontological
> genre _par excellence_. We can think of science fiction as
> postmodernism's noncanonized or "low art" double, its sister-genre
> in the same sense that the popular detective thriller is modernist
> fiction's sister-genre. ...
nice...thanks for the specifics.
>
>authors (like Fuentes, Nabakov, Pynchon, Becket, ...)? Does anybody
>out there watch any film that might be considered PM-ish?
>
>Well?
>
>-tbd
Fuentes and nabokov would probably not dig the P-M ref. but, so what. their
just writers anyway. ;) mere talent ;) ;) p-m is in the perception and the reading. the two
of them go for hemingway as primal sources. pynchon is very definately
and conciously writing in a way which undermines the expectations of narrativity.
and he tells a damn good story. again, the p-m is in the reading it is not
some core transcendental truth about the text. it is something the text can be
as well as all the other things it is. 'eqiprimordially' as the heideggarians
say. beckett is just cool. look at brecht then beckett. p-m? sure, that too.
others: well, bob creeley and the other 'new american' poets have changed their
own name to the 'postmoderns' the latest edition of the new american anthology
everyone was reading in the 60-70's has that title now. sure p-m and good to read.
film? try YEAR OF THE PIG-DiAntonio, SHERMAN'S MARCH, SHOOT FOR THE CONTENTS,
SURNAME VIET< GIVEN NAME NAM, KINGS OF THE ROAD< PARISTEXAS< MY OWN PRIVATE
IDAHO< TRIBULATION 99, NICE GIRLS DON"T DO IT< THE COOK< THE THEIF< HIS WIFE<HER
LOVER< PROSPERO"S BOOKS< THE PIANO< more more many more
dan rigney
Andy Perry
(semi-definition) of postmodernism, see "The Postmodern and the
Postcolonial," a chapter of Anthony Appiah's _In My Father's House_. He
reads the "post" of postmodern, postcolonial, postrealist, etc. as a
gesture towards self-commodification. Well worth looking at...
--
Andy Perry Struggling myself don't mean a whole lot;
Brown University I've come to realize
Dept of English That teaching others to stand up and fight
Andrew...@Brown.edu OR Is the only way our struggle survives.
st00...@Brownvm.bitnet -- Sweet Honey in the Rock