Dr.monte Postmodernism

8/6/2019 Dr.monte Postmodernism

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/drmonte-postmodernism 1/86

tanding at,ntersections

,raversing mazes:mbracing spacesThe Postmodern

in

Film,

Fiction,

Ma. Antoinette Cusi-Montealegre, D.A.Ma. Antoinette Cusi-Montealegre, D.A.Alice Hollister-Marcquardt Professorial Chair in English



,

Just as when Iknow all the

answers, theychanged thequestions!



Pruitt-Igoe, 1955

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Pruitt-Igoe-overview.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Pruitt-Igoe-overview.jpg



“Modern architecture

died in St. Louis,Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3:32 pm when theinfamous Pruitt-Igoe

scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, weregiven the final coup degrace by dynamite.” --

Charles Jencks



Pruitt-Igoe, 1972



Los Angeles, CA. Disney Hall, c.1998-2003. Newhome for the L.A. Philharmonic.



Indianapolis, IN. College Life Insurance Company of Americabuilding, c.1972. This was one of the first office buildings todeviate from the modernist "glass box" ideal, and set the stage for future postmodern architecture.



a deep aversion to any project

that sought universal humanemancipation throughmobilization of the powers of

technology, science and reason

Harvey (1989) claims thatHarvey (1989) claims thatthere emerged -there emerged -

a rage against humanism and theEnlightenment legacy

a vigorous denunciation of abstractreason



are undermined Modernist sentiments

deconstructed surpassed

even interrogated



W ho wa s I ?

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGklpqCgJHx3kB0w9XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTBsZDdmM2M5BHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA3NrMQR2dGlkAw--/SIG=1iksk0omj/EXP=1191402474/**http%3A/images.search.yahoo.com/images/view%3Fback=http%253A%252F%252Fsearch.yahoo.com%252Fsearch%253Fei%253DUTF-8%2526p%253Dorangutan%252B%252528picture%252529%2526fp_ip%253DPH%26w=100%26h=100%26imgurl=www.alice-trauelsen.dk%252FphpBB2%252Fimages%252Favatars%252Fgallery%252FAvatars%2525201%252FOrangutan.jpg%26size=4.2%26name=Orangutan.jpg%26rcurl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.alice-trauelsen.dk%252FphpBB2%252Fviewtopic.php%253Ft%253D1881%26rurl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.alice-trauelsen.dk%252FphpBB2%252Fviewtopic.php%253Ft%253D1881%26p=orangutan%26type=jpeg%26no=3%26tt=76%252C466





Tsk, tsk, tsk…



Brian McHale (1987) asserts…

•How do we know or perceive theworld?

•How does art create or change

perception?•What is the nature of reality?

Modernism emphasizes questions of epistemology or knowledge:



Postmodernism more stronglyemphasizes questions of ontology or being

What constitutes identity?

How is the self constructed in and

through culture?

A n o

d a w ?



Jameson (1998) sought to defineand describe the concept of

postmodernism.

reaction against established

forms of high modernism



The great modernistpoetry of Pound, Eliot or

Wallace Stevens…



The fiction of Joyce,Proust, and Mann…



The style of Le Corbusier or Miesvan de Rohe in architecture…



are considered dead, stifling,canonical – they are the reified

monuments that one has todestroy to do anything new.



In postmodernism, Jameson

continues, there is the erosionof the older distinction betweenhigh culture and the so-calledmass or popular culture.

HIGH CULTURE

mass/popular culture



There is an effacement of the older categories of

genre and discourse.

genrediscoursediscourse



The postmodernists incorporate them, tothe point where the line between high art

and pop art/commercial forms seemsdifficult to draw.

HIGH ART

pop art/commercial art



MICHEL FOUCAULT

http://www.michel-foucault.com/gallery/pictures/foucault20.html












??








P h i l o

s o p h y ?

P h i l o

s o p h y ?

H i s t o r y ? H i s t o r y ?

Soc ia l t heo r y ?

P o l i t i c al sc i e nc e ?


L i t e r a r y

theo r y ?

L i t e r a r y

the o r y ?

??

































































































































P h i l o

s o p h y ?

P h i l o

s o p h y ?

H i s t o r y ? H i s t o r y ?

Soc ia l t heo r y ?



L i t e r a r y

theo r y ?

L i t e r a r y

the o r y ?




























































































































Andy Warhol

Campbell Soup, 1962

http://bombardino.clarence.com/2004-07-01/




Andy

Warhol
















http://www.madonna-store.com/item/Images/blondambition2dvdsetpic.htm



OLDER MODELS –Picasso, T. S. Eliot,Proust, or Joyce – donot work any more since

nobody has that kind of unique private world andstyle to express anylonger

Postmodernism claims

http://www.listal.com/book/picasso-1258371/pictures



qWriters and artists

of the present daywill no longer beable to invent newstyles and worlds –

they have alreadybeen invented

Really??



qOnly a limitednumber of

combinations arepossible

qThe unique ones

have been thoughtof already(Jameson, 1998)

Talaga lang ha!



What?

wHen?

Why?

How?

wHere?

ti h ti t



pastichepasticepast

epastichepastichhepastichepastichepastichepchepastich

ti h



pastiche

Mimicry of other styles

Incorporation

of old styles


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/drmonte-postmodernism 39/86umberto eco



Casablanca, 1942

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009W0WM/metasoul



Intertextual collage

Intertextual archetypes

De ja vu

Intertextual Frames

Ancestral IntertextualTradition

Moulin Rouge





Jasper Fforde





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WOLP_UK.jpg



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thursday_next_4_uk_bookcover.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WOLP_UK.jpg



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cover_of_The_big_over_easy.jpg





HEROINE: Thursday Next

– a literary detectivewhose job is to huntdown book criminalswho steal books and

jump their way intounpublished books toescape the law.



CHARACTERS

Mycroft Next – Thursday’s uncle

Polly Next – Mycroft’s wife who jumps into Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

Jack Schitt – punished by havinghim jump in The Poems of Edgar

Allan Poe, specifically TheRaven.



VILLAIN: Acheron Hades

steals the original copyof Jane Eyreof CharlotteBrontë. He uses theProse Portal to book

jump inside the novel,kidnaps Jane and asksfor ten million pounds asransom.



Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte



‘…There were thousands of them,encircling the station behind crowdbarriers, silently holding candlesand clutching their copies of JaneEyre, now seriously disrupted, thenarrative stopping abruptly halfwaydown page 107 after a mysterious“Agent in Black” enters Rochester’sroom following the fire. …’ (p. 301)



‘…She cackledmaniacally and twisted

a pair of scissors thatshe had buriedbetween Hades’shoulder blades. He

cried out once againand fell to his knees asthe flame from the litcandle set fire to the

layers of wax polishthat had built up on abureau.



‘The flames greedily enveloped thepiece of furniture and Rochester pulled some curtains down in order to

smother them. But Hades was upagain, his strength renewed: Thescissors had been withdrawn. Heswiped at Rochester and caught him

on the chin; Edward reeled and fellheavily to the floor. A manic gleeseemed to overcome Acheron as hetook a spirit lamp from the sideboard

and hurled it to the end of thecorridor; it burst into flames andignited some wall hangings. …’(p. 338)



Postmodernism

This scene is straight out of aclimactic scene of an action

movie. Jasper Fforde told thestory with a cinematic eye.

Jane Eyre, in Jasper Fforde’s

hands, became an exciting andaction- packed story.



Postmodernism

• Combination of the retardation of thenarrative and defamiliarization(Jane Eyre becomes a detectivestory), and intertextuality

• Points to the allusive and elusiveimitation/ plagiarism of older plots

and styles which is also a featureof pastiche.



Postmodernism

The effect is an open

playfulness about fictionality. ‘Jouissance’.



Postmodernism

Question of subjectivity

Conscious and unconscious

(modernist)Absence of interiority in the self

(postmodern)

Presence, surface,depthlessness



“There is nothing for me after Janeleaves with that slimy and patheticexcuse for a vertebrate, St. John Rivers.”“So what will you do?”

“Do? I won’t do anything. Existencepretty much ceases for me about then.”“Death?”“Not as such,” replied Rochester,

choosing his words carefully. “Whereyou come from you are born, you liveand then you die. Am I correct?’“More or less.”



“A pretty poor way of living, I shouldimagine!” laughed Rochester. “Andyou rely upon that inward eye we calla memory to sustain yourself in timesof depression, I suppose?”“Most of the time,” I replied, “althoughmemory is but one hundredth of thestrength of currently felt emotions.”“I concur. Here, I neither am born,nor die. I come into being at the ageof thirty-eight and wink out againsoon after, …”







Who am I?

Sino ako?



Postmodernism

Retardation of the narrative

Defamiliarisation

IntertextualityAllusive and elusive

imitation/plagiarism

Open playfulness andfictionality



Tim O’Brien

The Things They Carried(National Book Award infiction, 1979)



Tim O’Brien

The Things They Carried(National Book Award infiction, 1979)

How to Tell a True War Story




‘In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to

separate what happened from what seemed tohappen. What seems to happen becomes its ownhappening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, youclose your eyes and duck and float outside yourself.

When a guy dies, like Lemon, you look away and thenlook back for a moment and then look away again.The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. Andthen afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is

always that surreal seemingness, which makes thestory seem untrue, but which in fact represents thehard and exact truth as it seemed.’ (p. 176)



‘In many cases a true war story cannot bebelieved. If you believe it, be skeptical. It’s aquestion of credibility. Often the crazy stuff istrue and the normal stuff isn’t because the

normal stuff is necessary to make you believethe truly incredible craziness.

In other cases you can’t even tell a true war story. Sometimes it’s just beyond telling.’ (p.176)




‘… these guys get themselves deep in thebush, all camouflaged up, and they liedown and wait and that’s all they do,nothing else, they lie there for sevenstraight days and just listen. … and there’salways this fog – like rain, except it’s notraining – everything’s all wet and swirly

and tangled up…Like you don’t have abody. … You just go with the vapors – thefog sort of takes you in …’ (p. 177)




‘He stepped back and shot it through theright front knee. The animal did not makea sound. It went down hard, then got upagain, and Rat took careful aim and shot

off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters…He put the rifle muzzle up against themouth and shot the mouth away. Nobodysaid much. The whole platoon stood there

watching, feeling all kinds of things, butthere wasn’t a great deal of pity for thebaby water buffalo. Lemon was dead.




‘Rat Kiley had lost his best friend inthe world. … Rat went to automatic.He shot randomly, almost casually, …

Then he reloaded, squatted down,and shot it in the left front knee. …Rat shot it in the nose. He bentforward and whispered something, as

talking to a pet, then he shot it in thethroat. …’ (p. 180)




‘How do you generalize? War is hell, but that’s not the half of it,

because war is also mystery and terror andadventure and courage and discovery and

holiness and pity and despair and longing andlove. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling;war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.

The truths are contradictory. … but war isalso beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help butgape at the awful majesty of combat.





… Mitchell Sanders was right. For the

common soldier, at least, war has the feel – thespiritual texture – of a ghostly fog, thick and

permanent. There is no clarity. Everythingswirls. The old rules are no longer binding, theold truths no longer true. Right spills over intowrong. Order blends into chaos, love into hate,ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility

into savagery. The vapors suck you in. Youcan’t tell where you are, or why you’re there, andthe only certainty is absolute ambiguity.’ (p. 181)




‘In a true war story, if there’s amoral at all, it’s like the thread thatmakes the cloth. You can’t tease itout. You can’t extract the meaningwithout unraveling the deeper meaning. And in the end, really,there’s nothing much to say about atrue war story, except maybe “Oh.”…’ (p. 179)




postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern



postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern

postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern

postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern

postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodernpostmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodern postmodern postmodern postmodern postmodernpostmodernpostmodern

INTRODUCTION…

Flashed back through the story and the storyComes out backwards and woof-side up. This isNo one’s story! At least they think thatFor a time and the story is architecture

Now, and then history of a diversified kind.A vacant episode during which the bricks gotRepointed and browner. And it ends upNobody’s, there is nothing for any of us

Except that fretful vacillating around the centralQuestion that brings us closer,For the better and worse, for all this time.



Haryette

Mullen



S



Susan Howe

SUSAN HOWE

The NONCONFORMIST’S MEMORIAL



The NONCONFORMIST S MEMORIAL

Postmodernism



The term postmodern connotespostmodernism, a historical periodstretching from the 1960’s to the present,marked by such phenomena as upheavals

in the international economic system, theCold war and its decline, the increasingethnic heterogeneity of the Americanpopulation, the growth of the suburbs as a

cultural force, the predominance of television as cultural medium, and the riseof the computer (Geyh et al., 1998).



Collage

Historical period

Television as cultural medium

Grouping of ideas

Thematic preoccupation

Postmodernism



Postmodernism

Pastiche

Pluralism

DecenterednessFragmentation

Discontinuity



Postmodernism

Indeterminacy

Metafictionality

Heterogeneity

Dislocation

Ludism

Self consciousness

Reflexivity



h a n k!o u

Documents

Dr.monte Postmodernism