today we will go through some of the terms and ideas of jameson, as well as our initial thoughts and...
TRANSCRIPT
What is postmodernism?
• Today we will go through some of the terms
and ideas of Jameson, as well as our initial
thoughts and preconceptions.
Postmodernism
• When you hear the term postmodern, what do you
think it means?
• Where do you see it, or hear it?
• How is it different from modernism (if we indeed
know what modernism is!)?
Postmodernism
• Postmodernism is "post" because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody—a characteristic of the so-called "modern" mind.
Postmodern
• Not just another word
for a particular
style…emergence of
new formal features
in culture with new
social and economic
order (1956)
POSTMODERN
• Modernity is fundamentally about order: about rationality and rationalization, creating order out of chaos. The assumption is that creating more rationality is conducive to creating more order, and that the more ordered a society is, the better it will function (the more rationally it will function). Because modernity is about the pursuit of ever-increasing levels of order, modern societies constantly are on guard against anything and everything labeled as "disorder," which might disrupt order.
POSTMODERN
Modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between "order" and "disorder," so that they can assert the superiority of "order." But to do this, they have to have things that represent "disorder"--modern societies thus continually have to create/construct "disorder." In western culture, this disorder becomes "the other"--defined in relation to other binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male, non-hygienic, non-rational, (etc.) becomes part of "disorder," and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society.
•
Metafiction: a key part of
Postmodernism
• Metafiction is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction. It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually, irony and self-reflection.
• Yann Martel’s Life of Pi exhibits metafiction.
• Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family
Kitsch
• “the erosion of the distinction between high
culture and low culture.” (1956)
• “distressing to academia”
• Lovingly detailed yet in terrible taste
• http://www.museumofbadart.org/ portraits
Plagiarism
• There is no formal boundary between styles,
between past and present.
• To borrow without acknowledgement is in
many ways to pay respect.
• At the same time, we can also think of how
theory is no longer bound by discipline. It is
“all or none of these things at once” (1957).
Here is a photograph of the Spanish Surrealist painter
Salvador Dali (1904-1989), along with two of his many self-
portraits. How do we recognize or see him in each text?
Parody and Pastiche
• Parody mocks
original, but is also
determined by the
ability to have security
in language
• What makes Austin
Powers possible?
Pastiche
• 1958—pastiche also
parody, but it is a
neutral practice of
mimicry, without
satire, that what is
being parodied is
normal. It is parody
that has lost its sense
of humour.
Salvador Dali
Persistence de la memoire 1974
• The Truman Show with Jim Carey is fine example of postmodernism.
• The “walls” of Truman’s world are artificial, and only exist because he believes they exist.
The Death of the Subject
• Reread the section 1958-9
• What are the consequences of the death of
the subject?
Pastiche/Death of Subject
Directed by Jim
Jarmusch,1995.
Accountant William
Blake (Depp)
encounters a drifter
names Nobody in 19th
C, with references to 20
th C America.
Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes, 1969
Nostalgia
• What is nostalgia?
• What is the difference between history and
nostalgia?
• What is the role of pastiche?
• How is Star Wars postmodern pastiche?
Postmodern City: Bonadventure Hotel
Aesthetic of the Consumer
• What is multinational capitalism?
• How do we live in a perpetual present?
• What has happened to tradition and nation?
POWER
OTHER
• In postmodernism, what happens to race
and gender?
• Go back to Gates
• What are implications for the Other?
• What is Postmodern blackness?
– What is Hooks’ thesis? 2008
Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998)
• Born in France
• PhD in English Literature
• Taught at U of Paris until
1987
• Politically active,
particularly in discussions
about Marxism, and how
it is inadequate for
explaining new social
forms, esp those in former
Soviet Union.
Lyotard and Postmodernism
• Introduced the term in 1979 in The Postmodern Condition.
• With the poststructuralists in mind, Lyotard claims that the
position of judge or legislator is also a position within a
language game, and this raises the question of legitimation.
• Essentially, there is a distrust of meta-narratives.
• Knowledge is no longer essentially narrative.
• Instead, we nimbly move in the ebb and flow of
information.
Postmodernism and Christianity
• In the field of the
subject there is no
referent.
– Roland Barthes
• There is nothing
outside the text.
– Jacques Derrida
Postmodernism and Christianity
• As you work you way
through the various
material, you are going to
encounter various
discussions about
postmodernism and its
positive and negative effects
on Christianity, culture,
community, and so forth.
The Bad • As we use theory, it uses
us.
• God cannot exist in a
postmodern world.
• There is no moral law in
postmodernism.
• The postmodernist claims
that all you can do is try to
impose your preferences
on others before they
impose theirs on you
(Colson).
• Denies grace (Smith 26)
• Postmodernism, in its
arrogance, far from
safeguarding our liberties,
is becoming one of the
most tyrannical controllers
of thoughts and culture
and speech and discourse
that has walked this planet
since the dawning of the
Reformation (Mitchell)
• Bible studies is wrecked.
All we do now if find out
what everybody thinks.
There is no process.
The Good • We need to embrace
current ideas of culture
and learn from them,
rather than react out of
fear.
• God can exist in a
postmodern world.
• There is moral law in
postmodernism.
• Modernism claimed the
theories of dead white
men had universal truth.
This is not true.
(McLaren).
• Postmodernists have been
harsh on issues of
oppression, and so should
we (Adams).
• Postmodern is an easy
target if you don’t bother
to find out more about
what you are criticizing.
• Postmodern theory is yet
another way to think about
God—no more, no less.
• Why can’t uncertainty be
exciting?
Cubist Still Life by Roy Lichtenstein, 1974.
Recurrent Ideas in Theory
(from: Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. On
reserve in library under ENGL 405)
1. Anti-essentialism—many of the notions
previously regarded as universal and fixed
(gender identity, individual selfhood) are actually
fluid and unstable. These are socially constructed
or contingent categories rather than absolute or
essential ones.
2. All thinking and investigation is affected by prior
ideological commitments. There is no
disinterested enquiry.
3. “Language itself conditions, limits, and
predetermines what we see. Language doesn’t
record reality but constructs it. Meaning in texts
is jointly constructed by the reader and writer.
4. “Theorists distrust all totalizing notions” (great
books, human nature)
Postmodernism at the Movies
• The Matrix, as Smith discusses, is fine example of postmodernism.
• Reality is a shadow, a copy of a copy—nothing is real or “reality.”
• Simulacrum
• We also see the
exploitation of
postmodernism in
reality tv such as
Survivor, The Real
World, or Celebrity
Rehab. They may be
“reality,” but we know
that they are edited and
manipulated behind the
scenes.
• It rejects all boundaries,
political or otherwise.
This rejection also
includes the boundaries
between different forms
and genres of art.
• Mockumentaries such
as The Office, or “faux
tv” such as The Daily
Show or characters
such as Borat and Ali G
could be considered
postmodern.
Stranger Than Fiction
• In the film, the master narrative is a Wildean perspective on art (art trumps mundane reality)
• It contrasts the master narrative of Harold`s painfully boring life working for the IRS.
• Oscar Wilde was not a fan of the working life!
• Postmodern thought sees simultaneous views not as contradictory but as an integral part of the complex patterning of reality.
So, what do we do?
• Smith has a few ideas
• Radical orthodoxy and a return to the ancient,
meaning that tradition can be good and positive,
with a commitment to “justice in the community”
(26).
• “Find the point of contact between Christian and
non-Christian thought” (28)
• For example, in Things Fall Apart, it is when the
missionaries meet the Igbo. What are the effects
on both cultures, and what can we learn from
them?
So, what do we do?
• “Modern Christianity tends to think of the church either as a
place where individuals come to find answers to their
questions or as one more stop where individuals can try to
satisfy their consumer desires. As such, Christianity
becomes intellectualized rather than incarnate, commodified
rather than the site of genuine community” (29)
• We need to see with the paradigm shift of Neo from The
Matrix!
• I’m not sure I entirely agree, but if we are aware, as the
postmodernists are, of the social construction of art (and
sometimes the church), then our analyses become
investigative rather than duplicative.
•
Postmodern and Christianity
• The postmodern focuses on a de-structured, de-centered
humanity. What this really means is that the idea of
disorder and fragmentation, which were previously seen as
negative qualities, are seen as an acceptable representation
of reality by postmodernists.
• As Christians, we could potentially see it as a chaotic,
fallen world. Many Christians don’t like the concept of
postmodernism because it upsets our unified image of God
and the Bible.
• We turn to God for answers, not multiple threads of
potentially meaningless narrative.
Postmodern and Christianity
• Others like postmodernism because it encourages
us to see our faith and Christ in entirely new ways.
• Meaning can still be found in these seemingly
disjointed, fragmented narratives.
• For example, Stranger Than Fiction can be read
as an allegory of the life of Jesus with its motifs of
sacrifice, life and death.
Postmodern and Christianity
• Others like postmodernism because it encourages us to see
our faith and Christ in entirely new ways.
• For example, Stranger Than Fiction can be read as an
allegory of the life of Jesus with its motifs of sacrifice, life
and death.
• Although Harold unwillingly becomes the Saviour figure,
it is only when he faces his imminent death and acts as a
sacrificial atonement for another's life that he is allowed to
live.
• A form of resurrection occurs, and an incredulous Harold
finds himself in a comedy rather than a tragedy.
• It is postmodern irony with a Christian twist.
Canadian Postmodern
• The emergence in Canada over the last twenty years of regionalist identifications and the growth of regional political parties has put enormous pressure on the concept of a centralized polity, and the fact that separatism has gained new strength not only Quebec but the Western provinces is evidence, though of an extreme form, that a unified idea of Canada and ‘Canadianness’ is at best a dream.
•
Canadian Postmodern
• Postmodern writing, according to Linda Hutcheon in The Canadian Postmodern, is suitable to Canadian authors, particularly the short story practioners. This is one of the most important books on Canadian postmodern.
• It is through the postmodern that there is the best (re)reading of all the things Canada was once thought to be, and all of those things that Canada might be in the process of being.
• In other words, if we can’t define Canada, let’s celebrate it fragments and allow wholeness to exist in the imagination
•
Canadian Postmodern
• She argues that “Canada’s own particular
moment of cultural history does seem to
make it ripe for the paradoxes of
postmodernism, by which I mean those
contradictory sets of establishing and then
undercutting prevailing values and
conventions in order to provoke a
questioning, a challenging of ‘what goes
without saying’ in our culture.”
Canadian Postmodern
• Since the periphery or the margin might also
describe Canada’s perceived position in
international terms, “perhaps the post-modern
ex-centric is very much a part of the identity
of the nation” (Hutcheon 3).
• Within postmodernism’s challenges to
borders as limits, borders become “the post-
modern space par excellence, the place
where new possibilities exist” (Hutcheon 4).
• For Canadians, the postmodern is good!