The Postmodern

Notes

Introduction

1.1 The plurality of the postmodern

- Lyotard; „eclecticism as a degree zero of contemporary culture“

- „anything goes attitude“

- The realism of „anything goes“ is the realism of money

- The influence of globalisation

- The distinction between the lavish lifestyles of the westerners and the struggling
and the dispossessed for whom globalisation means loss of security

- Refugees and asylum seekers juxtaposed with international travelers

Former look for the promise of freedom, the later entertainment

- Deregulation, disruption and dispersal of communities and traditions

Between these two a conflict exists which threatens the stability (class conflict on
a global scale?)

A postmodern thinker or artist must explore the questions of this contemporary

situation

1.2 Defining the postmodern

- Finding a simple, uncontroversial meaning for the term „postmodern“ is

impossible.

- Postmodernism rejects and disrupts the notions of definitions, therefore the

definition would undermine the purpose of postmodernism

The postmodern according to critics:

- a playful period of freedom and consumer choice

- culture that has gone off the rails as capitalism wrecks the communities and
cultures

- complex theories that have very little to do with the world

1.3 Postmodernisms and postmodernities

- fracturing, fragmentation, indeterminacy and plurality; the key postmodern figures

 - in 70's and 80's the term becomes popular in western culture and everything
new becomes „postmodern“

- postmodernism interacts with terms like feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism,

politics of globalisation, environmental studies, history, philosophy and literary
criticism

- Each discipline defines postmodern on it's own terms – the term is very allusive

- Many different definitions by an array of critics (Hassan, Lyotard, Connor,

Jameson etc)

Postmodernism evokes the ideas of irony, disruption, difference, discontinuity,

playfulness, parody, hyper-reality and simulation

- Ihab Hassan, The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a postmodern literature

- Schematic list of the differences between modernism and postmodernism, however

the list is problematic as it does not account for the transition between these
extremes

- Distinction between postmodernism and postmodernity

- Postmodernism is often described as a genre or a style, while postmodernity is an

epoch

- A firm distinction is once again impossible

Chapter 1: Modernism and Postmodernism

1.1 Charles Jencks, What is Post-Modernism?

Postmodernism as a world-wide movement pervading all disciplines. It's a style of

the age, and because of it's omnipresence it is hard to categorize

Postmodernism focuses on style and modes of representation and is considered a

successor to modernism

- The aim is to identify how the different versions of the postmodern emerge from
modernism and illustrate how postmodernist theory might relate to contemporary
culture

1.2 Architecture: Modernism and post-modernism

- Architecture has a deep impact on people, their communities and their enviroment
 - Because architecture requires financing the postmodernism in it is defined simply

- Architecture has precise notions of modernism and post modernism as post

modernism directly inherents it

- International style is a manifestation of modernism that started in the aftermath of

WWI
A set of „universal“ architectural rules which all construction should follow,
regardless of the place

- The town was to become a „working tool“ (Conrads) that allowed smooth running
and efficient administration of working life
Jencks describes the move from the International style of modernism to
postmodernism in his book „The Language of Post-Modern Architecture“

- The aims of modernist architecture were humanitarian, but they forced people to
live in unitarian landscapes that broke up traditional communities

- People needed to adapt to „rational“ schemes, but failed to do so. They are not
as malleable as International style presumed

- „Double coding“ – Architects adapt by becoming eclectic and borrowing styles

from different epochs and „quoting“ them

- Aims to create a multi-layered space for its inhabitants

- „Critical regionalism“ (Frampton) – aims to reassert regional forms, traditions and

materials. Example is Piazza d'Italia which asserts the traditional Italian heritage
by parodying the DiTrevi fountain and presenting the Italian-American identity as
a mix of old, traditional and the new and pragmatic through the use of metal
ornaments.

- Other examples are „Die neue Staatsgalerie“ in Stuttgart and „Westin Bonaventure
Hotel“ in Los Angeles
Jameson sees the latter as a „hyperspace“ in which it is „impossible to get your
bearings“ and argues that the consequence of this is intense disorientation and
„schizophrenic experience of depthlessness“

- Postmodernism in architecture is than a radicalization of modernism that employs

new materials but resists the uniformity and state organized social engineering of
the International Style
The goals of postmodern architecture are to humanize the environment rather than
make the inhabitants fit their schemes

1.3 Modernism and Post Modernism in Art

- There is no International style in postmodernist art and therefore it is much more

divided and fragmented than architecture
- It is identified by it's propensity towards challenging cultural norms and customs

- It challenges the notion of art within a community and redefines how art should
represent the world

- Postmodernist movements present themselves as „avant.garde“, a group of artists

that came together to rewrite the rules of art (Pre-Raphaelites did this in the 19th
century?)

- Examples are the Surrealists, the Dadaists, the Futurists

- The key purpose was to change the public idea of what art was
According to Danto (1992) art was redefined completely

- According to Greenberg modernist art seeks to redefine and rediscover itself, and
it fights to reject the notion of entertainment. Each form of art according to
Greenberg must strip away of the surplus

- The modernist art moves away from realistic presentation and perspective and
gives way to flatness and abstract ideas

- Modernism uses art to call attention to art (Greenberg)

- Many modernists viewed art as a mean of transforming the world (Surrealist

Manifesto)

- Surrealism was non-conformist and tried to disrupt the ideas that govern the world

- To shock, disturb and provoke was the main goal; Salvador Dali's melting clocks
or Hans Bellmer's mutated dolls

- Postmodernism marks the exhaustion of the avant-garde projects, democratizes art

and enables all social classes to take part in art, marking the end of the „Great
Divide“ which was a barrier between art and popular culture

- Bourgeoisie depictions from artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichenstein. This
pop art challenges the distinctions between the supposed high art and the
commercial, mass art

- The postmodernist art does retain a quality of subversion modernist art was
renowned for

- Anselm Kiefer – The „Attic paintings“ – recontexualizes German myths and

legends previously used in Nazi ideology in order to question the established
notions of national identity

- Guerrilla Girls – The Conscience of the Art World, questions male supremacy in
the art world
 - However the art is becoming accepted by the very bourgeoise society that it was
meant to subvert and that modernism intended to undermine
Artists are becoming mass media stars

1.4 Reading the postmodern text: Postmodernism and Literature

- The term postmodernism has provoked the most intense debate

- Alasdair Gray's The Poor Things a parodic rewriting of Mary Shelley's

Frankenstein

- McHale argues that the move from modern to postmodern fiction is marked by a
change of focus from epistemological to ontological issues

- Modernism – How can the world be interpreted? – Postmodernism – What is a

world?

- Poor Things – suspension of both belief and disbelief; we are not sure what is true
and what is not true

- Jameson argues that postmodernity marks a „new depthlessness“ , a consequent

weakening of historicity, and a „schizophrenic subjectivity“ – postmodern
literature offers very little scope for resistance, culture has been commodified and
modern parody is nothing more than a pastiche

- Hutcheon in The Poetics of Postmodernism argues that these new techniques

present in the postmodern text form what is called a historiographic metafiction,
a self-conscious mode of writing that comments and explores its status as fiction as
well as questions the relationship between fiction, reality and truth

- It's focus on history enables the questioning of traditional historical fiction and
therefore acknowledges the paradox of the reality of the past but its textual
accessability to us today

- For Jameson postmodernism marks the abdication

from political responsibility, engagement and critique, and for Hutcheon it opens
up new political channels to challenge the dominant ideologies

1.5 Postmodernism as Immanent Critique

- Realism, followed by Modernism, followed by Postmodernism can be seen as a

gradual progress from the restrictions of the first to the freedom and
experimentation of the last

In contrast to this many critics view postmodernism as a style that can be located
throughout history and that Frankenstein can be as postmodern as Poor Things
 - Others which can be viewed in the same fashion include Don Quixote, Tristram
Shandy, Alice, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and they follow
the Lyotards arguments from his essay „An answer to the question, What is
postmodern?“

- Lyotard states that the three notions of realism, modernism and postmodernism
exist simultaneously and indicate different modes of presentation

- Realism depicts the world according to conventions with which the reader or
viewer if already familiar with and „protects his consciousness from doubt“

- This familiar style and pattern can be found in 19th century novels and
contemporary phenomena such as Hollywood film or popular music

- Modernism and Postmodernism for Lyotard present something „unpresentable“ ,

and they present something that a culture tried to repress or exclude
Lyotard calls this effect of questioning „sublime“
He juxtaposes the „beautiful“ and the „sublime“

- Beautiful indicates „harmony and attraction between the subject and the work“ and
the sublime a „mixed feeling of pleasure and pain: simultaneous attraction and
repulsion, awe and terror“
The notion of sublime, as a disturbance of everyday sense making is central to the
theory of postmodernism
The sublime in modern is invoked as an absence of content, while the form
continues to offer the reader material for consolation or pleasure

- Example is Marcel Prousts In the Search of Lost Time

- In modernism there persists something in culture which eludes presentation

- Postmodernism on the other hand challenges the reader in terms of content and
and form; example would be Joyces Ulysses or Finnegans Wake which disrupt the
reader's perception and generate new presentation
Postmodernism is avant garde according to Lyotard as it challenges the everyday
structures of cultural realism but draws it's associations not from obscure sources
outside of the culture, but rather from the culture itself, therefore alluding at it's
indiscrepancies
- The postmodern artist is in a position of a philosopher, as he is not governed by
any prescribed rules

- The term postmodernism is fluctuating as the culture adapts to the provocations

and challenges it poses

- Postmodern can be modern for one culture and realist for another

1.6 Postmodernism and Postmodernity

 - Postmodernism has to be observed through the lens of the sociopolitical context in
which it forms

- Jameson, Hutchon and Lyotard all agree on this

- Even the most bizarre works respond to general culture in one way or another

One must understand these underlying concepts in order to grasp Postmodernism

and Postmodernity

2.1 Modernity and Postmodernity

- Toynbee – A study of history (1954), first mentions the term „postmodernity“

- For Toynbee the modern is the „zenith of progress“ and development while
postmodernity is a period of decline in which wars rage incessantly „
It is a period of the decline of values of Enlightenment, where the old cultural
constraints no longer apply

- Postmodernism arose from a series of fundamental transformations that took place

after -WW2

- Some of the trends that appeared were globalisation, transformation of colonial

power, the development of new media and communication networks, and the collapse
of religious and political traditions

- Postmodernity as a new Industrial Revolution, a post-industrial society

- Critics argue that postmodernism is simply „a sceptical ethos which takes for granted
the collapse of realist or representationalist paradigms“

- For some it is an era in which new critical interpretations are possible. Analysing art
from different perspectives, free from the burden of tradition, others see it as a part of
anything goes era

2.2 The postmodern condition

- Lyotards „The posmodern condition: A report on knowledg“e

- „the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the
postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age“

- knowledge is seen as valuable as long as it is profitable

- knowledge in terms of narratives that we tell about our age, from particle
physics to magazine gossips
- „metanarratives“ – systems of rules that determine the legitimacy of
particular form of narrative; example: My love is like a red, red rose – valid in terms
of poetry, invalid in terms of botany

- „grand narratives“ – Grand narratives construct accounts of human society

and progress. In The Postmodern Condition Lyotard identifies two main forms
of grand narrative in modernism: speculation and emancipation.

- „the speculative grand narrative charts the progress and development of knowledge
towards a systematic truth: grand unified theory in which our place in the universe will
be understood.

- „emancipation, on the other hand, sees the development of knowledge as driving

human freedom as it emancipateshumanity from mysticism and dogma through
education: knowledge, on this account, ‘is no longer the subject, but in the service of
the subject“

- „ I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives’“ – Capital

liquidated metanarratives, the criteria that define the validity of arguments in
specific disciplines are no longer persuasive as they were
- capitals superiority lies in that fact that it is not seeking to have the
last word, but rather in seeking to have the next word

- while the grand narratives seek to draw all knowledge into asingle system,
capitalism is more than happy with fragmentation, so long as those fragments
of knowledge continue to develop, grow and make a profit“.

- the global race for power is a competition in knowledge and the goal i s
efficiency
- (if the goal is efficiency does that not equate it with some of the
former systems i.e fascism, the final say, or solution being profit?)

- capitalism ‘necessarily entails a certain level of terror:

be operational or disappear’

- Lyotard sees the main threat of the postmodern society in reducing the
knowledge to a system in which the only criterion is efficiency
- The question is no longer Is it true?, but rather What use is it?

- pragmatism takes over from ethics and the calculation of profit and efficiency
is in the driving seat

- however a more nuanced explanation is needed to explain the modernity and

pre modernity in todays politics
 2.3 The meaning of post

- What does the „post“ actually signify?

- Lyotard identifies three relationships between modern and post modern in his „Note
on the Meaning of “Post-”“
- first is a simple succession, a new period that supersedes the earlier
- the problem for Lyotard is the grand narrative of modernity which no longer works
towards progress
- second says that development and innovation no longer generate progress and that in
itself is postmodern and differs from the grand narratives of modernism
- the third meaning is one on expressions of though, in art, literature, philosophy and
politics
- here the postmodern does not replace the modern but rather performs a continual
reading and rereading and critique of modern values
according to Lyotard all of these must be put together if one is to seriously attempt to
give an accurate account of postmodernity

2.4 Defining modernity

- „the postmodern only makes sense as a modification of the modern that at

modernity and postmodernity once contains and contests its categories, ideas and
problems“.

- Bergman: To be modern is to be confronted with disruption and change

- To understand the postmodern one must understand the modern and it's
relation to the former in order to be capable to react to contemporary society, thought
and culture in a „productive“ way

- modernity according to Bergman is a period of constant transformation that

affects all aspects of experience from science and philosophy to urbanisation and
state bureaucracy

- to be modern is to be constantly confronted by the new

- the beginnings of modernity vary, however it can be summarized as
humanities striving for continual progress

- modern criticism needs to discern the rules, values and systems that underpin
development

- Kant thought of it as a „plan“ that needs to be figured out, a „plan“

which Lyotard calls the grand narrative

- Jurgen Habermas followed this course

2.5 Jurgen Habermas and the discourse of modernity
- Modernity: An Unfinished Project (1980)

- He follows Bergman's notion of modernity as a period of continual transformation

- it is the epoch that lives for the future, that opens itself
up to the novelty of the future’
- Habermans argues that this discourse begins with philosophical systems of Kant and
Hegel

- The emancipation of subjectivity

- The idea of history as a rational progress of humanity
- The possibilities of resistance to the commodification of daily life

- As the previously adhered systems of religion and morality give way to scientific
explanations the notion of human experience has subdued itself to subjectivity and
these formal systems of thought (ie science) serve to subdue the
previously ubiquitous experience to an individual outlook

- Truth, justice and beauty are no longer universal, but individual

- To understand modernity we must first understand Hegel

- The development of reason will need to be charted in order to follow the modern
narrative of progress

- If human nature is not divinely given or externally fixed then it can be mutated and
changed - marxism

- Modernist ideologies therefore want to emancipate people and transform the world

- Malpas claims that the postmodernism critique does not take into
consideration these modern Marxism-inspired ideas