Postmodernism Books

Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

Fredric Jameson

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The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism 3 out of 5 stars.
78 of 95 people found this review helpful.

The term, Postmodernism refers to the cultural and ideological configuration that is taken to have replaced or be replacing Modernity. New movements in architecture and the arts as well as social theories indicate a change from modernity to postmodernity.
Frederic Jameson, an American Marxist social theorist and the author of the book, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, draws the attentions to the differences in culture between the modern and postmodern periods. In order to explain his arguments, Jameson is specially interested in the fields of architecture, art and other cultural forms. He places the heaviest emphasis on architecture. In his article, Jameson's basic argument is that postmodernism is a dominant cultural form and that is indicative of late capitalism.
Jameson's article begins with the comparison of Van Gogh's painting to Warhol's. Jameson contrasts Van Gogh's painting with Warhol's "Diamond Dust Shoes," He refers to the former as the symptom of a typical "modernist" work and the latter as a prime example of a "postmodernist" one. His main assertion here is that cultures and production has experienced important changes and these changes must be accounted by even more significant changes in history . He focuses on these changes on the individual level in postmodern society and his main concern was the cultural expressions and aesthetics that is associated with the different systems of production.
Jameson suggests that postmodernism is differed from other cultural forms by its emphasis on fragmentation. He specially emphasizes on the term, fragmentation. For Jameson, the fragmentation of the subject replaces the alienation of the subject which characterized modernism. Postmodernism always deals with surface, not substance. There is no center, rather everything tends to be decentralized in postmodernism. Postmodernist works are often characterized by a lack of depth. According to Jameson, individuals are no longer anomic and anxious, because there is nothing from which an individual could cut his or her ties. The liberation from the anxiety that characterized anomie may also mean a liberation from other kind of feeling as well. For him, this is not to say that the cultural products of the postmodernism are devoid of feelings, but rather such feelings are now free-floating and impersonal.
Jameson defines the late capitalist age as a distinct period, which focuses on commodification and the recycling of old images and commodities. Jameson provides an example of Warhol's work, (Diamonds Dust Shoes) as well as Warhol himself. Jameson refers to this cultural recycling as historicism (the random cannibalization of all styles of the past.) It is an increasing primacy of the 'neo'(new) and a world was transformed into sheer images of itself. the actual organic tie of history to past events is being lost.
All of these cultural forms in art and architecture are indicative of postmodernism, late capitalism, or what Jameson calls present-day multinational capitalism. Jameson claims that there has been a radical shift in our surrounding material world and the ways, in which it works. He refers to an architectural example, a postmodern building Symbolic of the multinational world space which people function in daily. Jameson suggests that the human subjects who occupy this new space have not kept pace with the evolution which produced it. There has been a mutation in the object, yet we do not possesses the perceptual equipment to match this new hyperspace. Therein lies the source of our fragmentation as individuals.
Jameson also suggests that this latest mutation in space, postmodern hyperspace, (he provides the Bonaventura hotel as an example) has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world. This is the symbol and analogue of our inability at present to map the great global multinational and decentered communicational network in which people find themselves caught as individual subjects. He continues, we now live in a world where our daily life, our experiences, our cultural languages are dominated by categories of space rather than by categories of time, which was dominant in past eras. For Jameson, late capitalism aspires to a total space and a vastness of scale.
Jameson's argument in this article is that postmodernism is a dominant cultural form, not simply a style, and Jameson considers this dominant cultural form (postmodernism) as a sign of late capitalism. In explaining postmodernism as a dominant cultural form, he is specially concerned with the field of architecture, art and other cultural forms. Yet, as far as I have seen in this article, Jameson seems to emphases much more on the field of art and architecture than on social and political aspects of postmodernism. For example, he does not explicitly give much attention or interest to social theories such as poststructuralism, which is highly associated with postmodernism. Secondly, although the term, "Late-Capitalism" implies multinational capitalism, media-capitalism, the modern world system and postindustrial society, in the article he only talks about multinational capitalism and he neither explicitly touches nor sufficiently explains the terms like; modern world system and postindustrial society.
I would also like to commend on Jameson's style of writing, in the article, he produces sentences that sometimes can run more than half a page, I think this makes the article a little bit harder to read. Nevertheless, Jameson's article is worth to read since it stands as one of the best written books on postmodernism, besides it also offers detailed analyses of postmodernism and late capitalist age.
In conclusion, by his article -The cultural logic of late capitalism"- Jameson tries to argue that all of the characteristics of contemporary art, architecture and cultural forms reflect the structure of late capitalism as well as contemporary society - (i.e. domination by multinational corporations, the decline of national sovereignty). Moreover he argues that postmodernity is a part of the cultural logic of late capitalism and this is what brings about cultural fragmentation. Although, in this article, social, political and other aspects of postmodernism have not been emphasized as much as art, architecture, and cultural aspects of postmodern age have been, this article clearly explains the connection and relation between postmodernism as dominant cultural form and late capitalist age.

Editorial Review:

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of “postmodernism.” Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low,” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.

Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

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Editorial Review:

The definitive compendium of classic oratory--a book for and of the ages now made even richer and more contemporary. William Safire's invaluable and immensely entertaining Lend Me Your Ears established itself instantly as a classic treasury of the greatest speeches in human history. Selected with the instincts of a great speechwriter and language maven, arranged by theme and occasion, each deftly introduced and placed in context, the more than two hundred speeches in this compilation demonstrate the enduring power of human eloquence to inspire, to uplift, and to motivate. For this expanded edition Safire has selected more than twenty new speeches by such figures as President Bill Clinton, Senator Robert Dole, General Colin Powell, Microsoft's Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama, Edward R. Murrow, Alistair Cooke, the Buddha, and the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. They prove that even in a digital age the most forceful medium of communication is still the human voice speaking directly to the mind, heart, and soul.

Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays

David Ball

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This guide to playreading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather then contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts.

Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use to make their plays stageworthy. The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, exposition, imagery, motivation/obstacle/conflict, theatricality, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play. He includes guides for discovering what the playwright considers the play’s most important elements, thus permitting interpretation based on the foundation of the play rather than its details.

Using Hamlet as illustration, Ball assures a familiar base for illustrating script-reading techniques as well as examples of the kinds of misinterpretation readers can fall prey to by ignoring the craft of the playwright. Of immense utility to those who want to put plays on the stage (actors, directors, designers, production specialists) Backwards and Forwards is also a fine playwriting manual because the structures it describes are the primary tools of the playwright.

Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Christopher Butler

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Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Butler touches on all aspects of PM thought/aesthetics in; literature, architecture, art theory etc. and nails it right on the head.

It is fair to say, as some reviewers pointed out below, that he is certainly not a cheerleader for PM theory. He shows no mercy and points out all of the glaring contradictions of PM dogma as he sees them. (And so much the better, considering that much writing on the subject frustratingly skims over the absurd aspects of PM in favor of joining in on the lovefest).

Nevertheless, this is a very clearly written and fair-minded little document.

Editorial Review:

Postmodernism has become the buzzword of contemporary society over the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this highly readable introduction the mysteries of this most elusive of concepts are unraveled, casting a critical light upon the way we live now, from the politicizing of museum culture to the cult of the politically correct. The key postmodernist ideas are explored and challenged, as they figure in the theory, philosophy, politics, ethics and artwork of the period, and it is shown how they have interacted within a postmodernist culture.

The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10)

Jean-Francois Lyotard

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Post-Nuclear Philosophical Fallout 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

If, as William Barrett once remarked, existentialism is "philosophy for the atomic age," then the atomic age's look into the future - by way of Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition - is nothing short of a nightmarish vision of what post-nuclear philosophy would be like. If the Cold War was ultimately the product of two totalizing visions - the two remaining totalizing visions of the modern age, namely liberal democracy and socialism - locked into prolonged, agonizing conflict behind facades such as international diplomacy, then the postmodern condition is the worldview of a world brought back from the brink of total annihilation. Postmodernism, claims Lyotard at the beginning of his book, is "incredulity towards metanarratives" (xxiv). Rather than seeking a new way of understanding the world en toto - a new totalizing vision/metanarrative - the postmodern condition backs away from the philosophical One and seeks what it seeks - itself or, rather, the disparate fragments that indicate the existence of itself - among the philosophical Many. As Lyotard also writes, postmodernism "refines our sensitivity to differences" - the exact opposite of the totalitarian visions that caused so much death in the 20th century.

The Postmodern Condition is a work that is as fascinating as it is complicated. Lyotard is heavily interested in the question of legitimation - specifically, how knowledge is made and validated. What defines knowledge? One could, in many ways, see this work as fundamentally epistemological, for he spends a considerable amount of time in this work focusing on how it is that the university system, in particular, can survive if knowledge is both under the sway of the forces of capital and no longer considered emancipatory. I am not entirely sure if Lyotard wants a return to a pre-postmodern world; the book is written in such a straight, matter-of-fact style that it is hard to tell whether or not he is for or against that which he writes of. Perhaps there is some irony in the fact that he appears so disinterested in describing a worldview - or, perhaps better, an anti-worldview - in which the notion of disinterested knowledge or unbiased reporting is conceived as being nothing more than a fiction. If there is any irony here, it is of the driest sort.

There is a certain Marxist hue, however, to many of the analyses contained in these pages. The ability of economic interests to determine the shape of research in a university with the subsequent result that some knowledge is found to sell and other kinds aren't - that which sells is therefore seen as more legitimate than that which doesn't - causes Lyotard considerable concern. Rather than philosophy or metaphysics being seen as capable of validating claims - truth, he notes, is no longer the main concern - science proves itself by way of its functionality. What it does and how that makes life on earth better becomes the sine qua non of our own material interests - and knowledge is therefore conceived as material, rather than ideal/metaphysical. There is no meta-language game that serves as the ground for other games: what matters is what you can *do* with a particular type of research, or a given object. Science is thus isolated from other fields, just as philosophy is. There is no longer a "queen of the sciences." Knowledge, in a holistic sense, is thus fragmented and all is placed under the final sway of capital - or, more specifically, market forces. Lyotard's analysis is nothing short of brilliant.

Included as an appendix to the present volume is one of Lyotard's most widely re-published essays: "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?" A short work - not quite 10 full pages in length - it is a perfect compliment to Lyotard's longer consideration of the matter. However, unlike the Report, the appendix deals little with the question of scientific knowledge, and much more with aesthetics. Whereas the Report is concerned with academia, the appendix turns towards popular culture, specifically fashion: "Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture" (76). Thus, the appendix can be scene as something like the popular counterpart to the more densely argued Report - popular in its focus, and in terms of the audience that it is geared to. Whether or not this means that postmodern philosophy is ultimately intended to leave the academy - the philosophical-institutional One - where knowledge cannot be validated and live, instead, among the philosophical-cultural Many remains a point of debate still today. Perhaps this is good reason for believing, then, that we do live in a postmodern age - and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition remains as prescient (future anterior) for understanding that age as ever.

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science

Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont

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Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Know what you are talking about 1 out of 5 stars.
25 of 54 people found this review helpful.

Alan Sokal, physics professor at New York University submitted an essay, `Transgressing the Boundaries,' to the prestigious journal Social Text, in 1996. The article was a deliberate hoax intended to mimic the deliberate obscurantism of the Post-Modernist/Post-Structuralist French intellectual community that had coalesced since the 1960's. This book, coauthored with Jean Bricmont, attempts to expose the post-modern movement for their asinine misappropriations of science and mathematics in a vain attempt to consolidate their academic positions. The authors under scrutiny are psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, literary theorist Julia Kristeva, feminist Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Paul Virilio, and `Epistemic Relativism in the Philosophy of Science' and the misappropriation of Godel's theorem, and abuses in the field of astrophysics.

In all fairness, the authors are able to land a couple of substantive blows against Lacan's abstruse use of mathematics in psychoanalysis, and Irigaray's unwise talk of `white male science,' but Sokal and Bricmont don't have their logic together, they make to many critical leaps in the inquiry. Without wanting to get into an involved exegesis of the divisions between analytic and continental philosophy that have existed since the beginning of the 20th century, I will simply say that as a general a priori principle of the human mind, the former believes in objective truth, and the latter is more skeptical, particularly of the principles of the enlightenment. But I am not so sure that Bricmont and Sokal are aware of the history of this division, and the key thinkers that have impacted the division. For example, in a tirade against Epistemic Relativism, the authors writes: "This relativist zeitgeist originates partly from contemporary works in the philosophy of science, such as Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Paul Feyerabend's Against Method, and partly from extrapolations of these philosophers' work by their successors" (51). Sokal and Bricmont go on to write in a footnote that "There are, of course, many other sources of the relativist zeitgeist, from Romanticism to Heidegger, but we shall not deal with them here" (ibid). Yes, never mind Heidegger, arguably the most important philosopher of the 20th century and the leading figure in the existentialist/post-modern movement in continental philosophy. Never mind his essay `Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics' which outlines a number of problems with reviewing the accomplishments of philosophy from a scientific point of view.

The authors of this text constantly misunderstand the achievements of `Enlightenment' philosophers that they believe the post-modern movement has digressed from, like Descartes and Hume. They write: "The universality of Humean skepticism is also its weakness. Of course, it is irrefutable. But since no one is systematically skeptical (when he or she is sincere) with respect to ordinary knowledge, one ought to ask why skepticism is rejected in that domain and why it would nevertheless be valid when applied elsewhere for instance, to scientific knowledge" (55). What are we supposed to take from this sentence? That we should believe that modern science objectively seeks the truth because...no one actually is a skeptic? Hume argues cogently in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that knowledge of causality can never truly be attained or demonstrably proven, it is merely an appearance based on the properties of a close relation in time and contiguity which deludes our senses. Why then, should we believe in the empirical sciences? The authors merely revert to (often incorrect) digressions on Popper's writings on falsifiability which the authors still seem to think is obsolete and the irrelevance of Cartesian rationalism. In short, they don't answer the problems philosophy has posed to the natural sciences. Sokal and Bricmont don't bother to mention anything about Foucault's archeology of the human sciences in `the Order of Things,' nor do they address any of the classical problems of epistemology and human knowledge raised by Kant or Hegel.

The largest problem with `Fashionable Nonsense' is that the authors take some legitimate criticisms and deduce too much from them. It is worth exposing a thinker for being unclear, meaningless, or irrelevant. However, they go entirely too far in attempting to write off the whole of post-modernity as sheer charlatanism based on a moderate amount of legitimate criticisms. What of the writings of Roland Barthes? What of Levinas? And what about the achievements of post-modern anthropologists like Pierre Bourdieu? After all, the vast majority of the work that is being done in these intellectual domains are more focused on the humanities, on literature, on politics and history, and purely philosophical activities like ontology or phenomenology that have nothing to do whatever with science. Sokal and Bricmont don't have their logic together. They write in their epilogue: "1. It is a good idea to know what one is talking about" (185). Yet I doubt they know anything about the history of philosophy outside of what they have read in Bertrand Russell. They seem to believe in the objective principles of truth established in the Enlightenment, but their political tirade does not mention a word of Rousseau or Nietzsche. They pay no attention to the intellectual bombs dropped on structuralism by Derrida, or by the Marxist analyses of Althusser. In short, they don't know what they are talking about. How ironic.

Editorial Review:

In 1996, Alan Sokal published an essay in the hip intellectual magazine Social Text parodying the scientific but impenetrable lingo of contemporary theorists. Here, Sokal teams up with Jean Bricmont to expose the abuse of scientific concepts in the writings of today's most fashionable postmodern thinkers. From Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva to Luce Irigaray and Jean Baudrillard, the authors document the errors made by some postmodernists using science to bolster their arguments and theories. Witty and closely reasoned, Fashionable Nonsense dispels the notion that scientific theories are mere "narratives" or social constructions, and explored the abilities and the limits of science to describe the conditions of existence.

Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism

Douglas Groothuis

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Sad... 1 out of 5 stars.
24 of 33 people found this review helpful.

Even if one is sympathetic to Groothuis's broad concern, one can't help but be disappointed with this text. This book is a bad regurgitation of other bad and reductive non-readings of `pomo'. Groothuis depends way too highly on secondary (and sometimes tertiary) sources. It escapes me how a former reviewer could call this work `scholarly.' I suppose if one considers Logic 101 tinged with the usual fundamentalist `defender of the Faith' rhetoric and aura (which hovers over every page), then this could be called `scholarly.'

The big problem I found is that even when Groothuis offers defensible criticisms, his alternatives end up being just as problematic as the positions he criticizes. For all his advocacy for a correspondence theory of truth, his tone betrays a penchant for certainty and formal coherence. He falls into the problem of the relation between thought and `reality,' representation to presentation, the role of language, and so forth. No doubt God comes to save the day with all these problems, yet on the very justificatory terms Groothuis advocates for, God escapes the measure of correspondence and becomes its condition of possibility. In other words, God becomes a structural metaphysical function which `saves' Groothuis's truth from the skeptic. The problem, however, is that Groothuis wants truth to be absolute, universal, and accessible to all, yet he is dependent on a moment (i.e. faith) which, by definition, retains a trace of contingency or `objective' undecidability.

Groothuis's more ethical concerns are where I am more sympathetic, but again, here his polemics and non-reading of the people he criticizes drowned out whatever constructive points he offers. Groothuis practices the same type of irresponsible reflection that some of the `pomo' Evangelical's do: uncriticality. Here, philosophy and reflection - whether Modern or postmodern - becomes a means to simply confirm and justify a complacent status quo, rather than challenging and transforming the status quo. The challenge presented in this book is for a nostalgic return to the good old days of Christendom.

Jesus did not come to `save' our metaphysical systems, but to redeem us and this world. That redemption is not contingent upon accurate representations as Groothuis seems to think. It is madness to the Greek (i.e. the logician) and a stumbling block to the Legalist (i.e. moralistic hypocrites). The task is not to make the faith less crazy or more socially repressive. As James tells us, the measure of `true' faith - and here I will grant a type of reference - is that we `attend to the widow and orphan.' Kerygma without service is dead, a worse lie than any humanism. Perhaps if we began `proving' our faith, that is, manifesting its truth in radical service and justice - we could actually demonstrate the truth to which we testify. I guess it is much easier to `defend the faith' with bad arguments which only convince the already convinced, than to `live the faith': serve the people no one gives a hoot about. After all, in the latter case one cannot fancy oneself a hero in quite the same way.

Postmodernism for Beginners (A Writers & Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book)

James N. Powell

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Best in its Genre 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

So many introductions to postmodernism are boring, or even unreadable simply because they are written by people who cannot write. These "writers" simply parrot the same pomobabble that so many postmodern thinkers indulge in--as if they were all members of some wierd cult. Powell--who CAN actually write--frys them for this, but then goes on to present excellent overviews of several important writers. One would not expect to find such depth in a comic book. The summary of Baudrillard's work, for instance, is often more insightful than those found in much weightier and intentionally serious volumes. Powell, explains the evoultion of Baudrillard's thoughts from its Marxist roots. Powell is especially good when it comes to the enigmatic Derrida, and his 'deconstruction.' Although Postmodernism for Beginners does not tackle Derrida's major works--as does Powell's Derrida for Beginners--it does make Derrida less mercurial, so that readers can then go on to read Derrida's works forewarned and forearmed. Powell really brings postmodernism to light, however, in his presentation of postmodern artifacts: Madonna, Bladerunner, cyberpunk, etc. Joe Lee's illustrations often present subtle asides to Powell's Proustian prose. All-in-all, one of the best I've read in the For-Beginners series.

Editorial Review:

Although no one knows exactly what postmodernism is, Postmodernism for Beginners gives a perfectly clear explanation of the subject. Author Jim Powell describes postmodernism as a series of "maps" that helps people find their way through a changing world. For reinforcement, he cites views from modern thinkers from Foucault to Guattari. Illustrated throughout.

The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics

Arthur W. Frank

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In At the Will of the Body, Arthur Frank told the story of his own illnesses, heart attack and cancer. That book ended by describing the existence of a "remission society," whose members all live with some form of illness or disability. The Wounded Storyteller is their collective portrait.

Ill people are more than victims of disease or patients of medicine; they are wounded storytellers. People tell stories to make sense of their suffering; when they turn their diseases into stories, they find healing.

Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as from people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known—Gilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancer—to the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilties. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic.

Frank identifies three basic narratives of illness in restitution, chaos, and quest. Restitution narratives anticipate getting well again and give prominence to the technology of cure. In chaos narratives, illness seems to stretch on forever, with no respite or redeeming insights. Quest narratives are about finding that insight as illness is transformed into a means for the ill person to become someone new.

From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature

Malcolm Bradbury, Richard Ruland

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Editorial Review:

No literary history can be a final and once-and-for-all account, but the authors of this book have sought certain things: a reasonable inclusiveness, up-to-date reading of the authors' work discussed, an informed critical posture. Having considered the complexity of American literature in social, historical and ideological context, at the same time recognizing American literature has been a Western literature, related to the thought and art movements that have crossed Europe and America. One advantage of a collaborated book, with authors from two sides of the Atlantic is a breadth of perspective and mixture of critical attitudes.