Postmodernism

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Postmodernism

• Post-WW2 philosophical and artistic movement
• Not yet fully congealed
• Collapse of master narratives
• e.g. religion, science, nationalism, individual
• Collapse of traditional artistic form
• Loss of confidence in foundational beliefs of a
  culture

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Postmodernism

• Sense that Modernist attempt to revise past myths
  has failed
• Can traditional myths still be remade?
• Or do we need new myths?
• Has been criticized for being overly pessimistic
• Has been criticized for being apolitical
• Influence of post-Structural thought

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Postmodernism

• Contemporary critical buzzword in theory
• Many meanings
• Hackneyed?
• Meaningful?
• Postmodernism as revolt against Modernism
• Modernism became canon of elite thought
• Confidence in reviving old myths

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Postmodernism

• Postmodernism rejects elitism of Modernism
• Postmodernism re-evaluated popular culture
• Postmodernism refused categorical certainty of
  Modernism
• Lyotardincredulity toward master narratives
• Announced collapse of universal and homogenizing
  master narratives
• Arnoldian distinctions of culture collapsed
• Postmodernism marks end of culture and
  beginning of cultures

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Postmodernism

• hooks critiques postmodernism and sees vital
  potential in the critical space created by
  postmodernism
• Baudrillard theorizes processes of simulation
• Simulation/simulacra create hyperreal
• Jamesons Marxist approach to Postmodernism
• Culture where real history is displaced by
  nostalgia
• Creates flow of perpetual presents
• Now see attempts to synthesize Postmodernism and
  Marxism by using Gramscis theory of
  Hegemonyi.e. we consent to the collapse of
  narratives

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Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations

• 350 Borgess tale of map
• Simulation now generates hyperreality
• Map now precedes territory
• Desert of the Real
• 351 Difference between map and territory has
  disappeared
• Power/function of metaphysics disappears
  consequently disappears

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Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations

• 351 Real now produced by miniaturized units
• Real no longer rationalonly operational
• No longer Realnow have hyperreal
• Age of simulation begins with liquidation of
  referentials
• Process of substituting signs of real for real
• Hyperreal prevents need to produce real

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Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations

• 351 Simulation implies absence rather than
  presence
• Threatens distinction between true/false,
  real/non-real
• 352 Every experience becomes simulatable
• Simulation now outflanks categories of classical
  reason
• Iconoclasm as result of simulacra

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Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations

• 353 Iconoclasts actually saw the value of images
• Dialectical representation and metaphysics
  collapse because of simulations
• Simulation envelops representation
• 353-54 Process of simulation
• 354 Dissimulation of absence key
• Leads to nostalgia and proliferation of myth
• Simulation now becomes strategy of Real
• Disneyland example

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Jean Baudrillard, from Simulations

• 355 Exaltation of America in miniature
• Disneyland makes us feel the rest is real
• Watergate example
• Making of a scandal
• Revives belief in political morality
• 356 Watergate not a scandal
• Capital dominatesnot (no longer) in contract
  with society

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 417 Postmodern discussions often exclusionary
• Few African-American intellectuals involved
• hooks wants to defend Postmodernism for Blackness
• Postmodernism dominated by White intellectuals
• 418 Few to now references to Black women

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 418 Exclusion of Black women despite Postmodern
  emphasis on Otherness and difference
• Modernist influence on Black Power movements of
  60s
• 419 Stifled by repressive PM thought
• Some Black voices silenced
• Some Black voices made inarticulate
• Turned to radical Postmodern practice

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 419 Postmodern thought still limited to specific
  audience
• For Postmodernism to matter, it must have
  material effect
• Need intimate contact with non-White Other
• Pervasive White supremacy prevents abandonment of
  Black Identity Politics
• Must engage decolonization as critical practice

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 420 Must still consider politics of racism
• Synthetic potential of Postmodernism
• Can connect different groups through means other
  than Western Cartesian identity
• Rap as new critical Black voice
• 421 Postmodern critique of subject threatens to
  destroy voice of Other
• Suspicious of Postmodern critique of essentialism

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 421 Postmodernism still quite valuable to
  de/construct Black identity
• Postmodernism call allow us to create multiple
  Black identities
• 422 Seeking to locate models of Black
  subjectivity that are oppositional and liberatory
  
• Black fear of totalizing critique of essentialism

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 422 hooks wants to critique essentialism and
  uphold authority of experience
• Black music has drawn attention of Postmodern
  theorists
• 423 hooks wants Black intellectuals to stop
  clinging to margins of intelligentsia
• Must not limit theorizing and theoretical
  discussions to the classroom

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bell hooks, Postmodern Blackness

• 423 Must make knowledge available beyond
  classroom
• Creative potential of Postmodern rupture
• Popular culture provides space for cultural
  exchange