Links and threads Fukuma-Baudrillard-Derrida

I'm thinking of my argument for my final analysis and I can first ascertain that there are many viewpoints on what postmodernism actually is.Yet what is evident is the force of meta narrative to deconstruct and redefine what we think we think is reality.

Ive been reading up on Francis Fukuyama in Malpas .In particular at his argument in The End of History and the Last Man.He is essentially taking Hegel's approach of absolute idealism as 'a movement towards the realisation of universal freedom. He is arguing that in mans ideological struggles are largely ending,but this is viewed with hindsight as he is looking at the end of the cold war .Thus the ideal of a liberal democracy and in particular at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ,reinforces his political opinion.But this argument of the 'west is reaching the end of history rests on 2 arguments drawn from natural science and a reading of Hegel's  idea of freedom as a struggle for recognising.The first he claims makes necessary "a universal evolution in the direction of

capitalism (1991:19)

'Technology makes possible the limitless accumulation of wealth ,and thus the satisfaction of an ever expanding set of human desires.This process guarantees an increasing homogenisation of all human societies ,regardless of their origins or cultural inheritances.'. (Malpas 2005:90) Thus he is looking at technological innovation as a progression and globalisation of 'trade that technological development permits erases the differences between cult's as their citizen's strive to purchase the same international brands.Because for Fukuyma ,capitalism is best able to provide the conditions for this development ..'(Malpas 2005:91)Thus Fukuyma is looking at a direct link between capitalism,globalisation and democracy as natural development and globalisation of culture makes each culture come into contact with the 'same international brands'.(Malpas 2005:91) Thus sense a capitalist democracy which challenges Baudrillard's perception as a 'perverse literalisation of Hegel's argument about the relation between the actual and the rational which he calls the hyper real.'(Malpas 2005:93) Baudrillard is essentially arguing that this rate or speed of technological advance has caused us to become a hypereal society ,where information is not necessary digested ,but has become a a society where the original is no longer the method of identity.In essence globalisation  has created global images of duplicate identification which has preceded the original .'The real is hyper realised.Neither realised nor idealised :but hyperealised.The hypereal is the abolition of the real not by violent distinction ,but by its assumption elevation to the strength of the model .' (1983:83-4)(Malpas 2005:93)

The second thread to Fukuyma argument is that of Derrida. He looked at the concept of the promised land of liberal democracy. And Derrida is arguing that Fukumas argument is flawed as it is based on a 'empirically observable event.'.So we are looking at the world from a western perspective and in terms of deconstruction ,Derrida is arguing that Fukuma is not looking at the bigger picture that not all people are Democratic and his argument is split between the 'idealisation of a liberal democracy and the free market and the impossibility of demonstrating such a system exist.'(Malpas 2005:93)So essentially Derrida is deconstructing Fukuma ,by trying to show that the ideal is actually fragmented within itself ,further generating more problems.

Poststructuralism and Derrida

Distinct definitions

1.A critique of 'the idea that human societies and their traditions can be understood according to universal and unchanging structures that are replicated in texts,art works etc.'(Castle 2008:154)

2.Challenges Ferdinand De Saussure's linguistic and Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology.

Jacques Derrida -Essay "Structure,sign and play in the Discourse of the Human sciences"(1966)

The idea behind this essay is questioning the idea of center.In essence it makes us examine the concept of centering as a balance in a structured environment.

'In the poststructuralist critique of structure,the center is deconstructed ,exposed as contradictory,incoherent a "mythology of presence"."The center is at the center of totality".Derrida claims ,and yet,since the center does not belong to totality,...it has its center elsewhere.

'Derridas ..deconstructive methods have been borrowed by literary critics and used in the reading of literary works.Deconstructive reading...tends to make emblems of the decentered universe we have been discussing.Texts previously regarded as unified artistic artifacts are shown to be fragmented,self -divided and centre less.They always turn out to be representations of the 'monstrous births' predicted at the end of 'Structure,sign and play.'(Barry 2009:65)

'Deconstruction ,which can be roughly defined as' reading against the grain' or 'reading against the text itself'

with the purpose of knowing the text as it cannot know itself.(These are Terry Eagletons definitions )  A way of describing this would be to say deconstructive reading uncovers the unconcious rather than the concious dimensions of the text.(Barry 2009:65)

This process is looking for a new dimension in particular at reading texts .Social and historical events in essence favour this concept as a new way of reading.To look beyond the text is inevitably asking us to embrace the metanarrative .

'Derridas own description of deconstructive reading has the same purport .A deconstructive reading.

must always aim at a certain relationship ,unperceived by the writer ,between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of language that he uses ...[It] attempts to make the not-seen accessible to sight' .(Of Grammatology p.p 158 and 163) (Barry 2009:69)

Thus what this process does as in Barry it produces 'textual harrassemnt' or 'oppostionl reading'. in 'pursuance of its aims ,the deconstruction process will often fix on a detail of the text which looks incidental -the presence of a particular  metaphor ,for instance and then use it as the key to the whole text,so that everything is read through it....The deconstructionist looks for evidence of gaps and discontinuities of all kinds. '

(Barry 2009:71)

The structuralist                                                                                    post structuralist

Parallels/Echoes                                                                                  Contradictions/Paradox's

Balances                                                                                               Shifts/Brakes in Tone:

                                                                                                               Viewpoint

                                                                                                               Tense

                                                                                                               Time 

                                                                                                               Person

                                                                                                               Attitude

Reflections/repetitions                                                                         Conflicts

Contrasts                                                                                                Linguistic Quirks

Patterns                                                                                                  Aporia

Effect :to show textual unity and coherence                                              Effect:to show textual disunity

(Barry 2009:70)

From this chart it is obvious that the text must be viewed for its inner meaning,we must look beyond the words and find conflicts and paradox's and viewpoints which make the text contradictory.Fixing upon words and metaphors are directly linked to how the text itself must be read.And in the case of the kiss of the spider women it is evident that passages carry a multiplicity of meanings as the blurb becomes fused with the text itself in parts.The shifts and breaks which occur are directly linked to Molina subverting into the fantasy world of film,where he becomes the heroine.

Three stages of deconstructive practice 

Verbal

Look at the paradox's and contradictions at a verbal level ,which is the written text itself and if it contradicts its own ideas.

Textual

This looks at the overhaul text and looks for a lack of construction,the deconstructive nature of the text

Linguistic

'the linguistic stage involves looking for moments in the poem when the adequacy of language itself as a medium of communication is called into question.'(Barry 2009:73)...In Piug this is the moment when the subtext of the films merge themselves into the subtext. 

Metafiction

I am going to explore metafiction and narrative in this section to gain an understanding of its relation to the Kiss of the Spider women and how to apply it to my 1500 word analysis.

'Metafiction

A quality of Postmodern fiction whereby narrative reflects upon its own status as fictional .It can take the form of structural self-reflection or a "laying bare" of the devices by which novelists traditionally achieve their effects.A related term is Robert Scholes fabulation,which refers to the complex patterns and arrangements of language and image often found in Postmodern and Contemporary fiction'.(Castle (2008:316)

metafiction

'reflexive awareness of the conditions of meaning construction,any typological definition of metafiction rooted in objective characteristics or essences will contradict the linguistic philosophy that it attempts to describe.Above all metafiction is committed to the idea of constructed meaning's rather than the representable essences'.(Currie(1995:15)

'Metafiction is a term given to the fictional writing which self consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationships between fiction and reality.In providing a critique of their own methods of construction ,such writings not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative fiction ,they also explore the fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text.

Novelists ...their novels have tended to embody dimensions of self reflexivity and formal uncertainty...they all explore the theory of fiction through the practice of writing fiction'.(Waugh 1996:2).

Terms definition

William .H.Gass (1970) -originator of the term metafiction

Meta-terms 'metafiction rests on a version of the Heisenbergian uncertainty principle :an awareness that 'for the smallest building  blocks of matter ,every process of observation causes a major disturbance '(Hesiensburg 1972:126) ,and that it is impossible to describe an objective world because the observer always changes the observed..In literary fiction it is ,in fact ,possibly only to represent discourse of the world'.

(Waugh (1996:3) Language generates its own meaning.

'Metafiction novels tend to be constructed on the principle of a fundamental and sustained opposition :the construction of a fictional illusion and the laying bare of that illusion.In other words ,the lowest common denominator of metafiction is simultaneously to create a fiction and to make a statement about the creation of that fiction.The two processes are held together in a formal tension which breaks down the distinction between 'creation' and 'crtiticsm' and merges them into the concepts of 'interpretations 'and 'deconstruction.'

(Waugh 1996:6)

'Contemporary meta fictional writing is both a response and a contribution to an even more thoroughgoing sense that reality or history are provisional :no longer a world of eternal verities but a series of

constructions ,artifices ,imperilment structures .The materialist ,positivist and empiricist world view on which realist fiction is premised no longer exists'.(Waugh 1996:7)    

'

The Literature of Exhaustion (John Barth)

'You who listen give me in a manner of speaking. I won't hold you responsible .My first words weren't my first words.I wish I'd begun differently.(Lost in the funhouse ,John Barth)

Fictionality of identity -Stories within stories -disturbs us metaphysically ,when the character in a work of fiction become readers or authors of fiction they are in.Where reminded of the fictitious aspect of our own existence.(Mirrors -Doubling)

Having read Barth's literature of exhaustion ,it is evident that he is challenging the concept of the way he regards that texts have been 'pedestrianised ' ,as in literary techniques have been used before ,notably the subject /metaphor topics. Thus I suppose in a way texts and' happenings' as in stage plays are following the traditional idea of the artist and he is in essence challenging this norm.he argues that in the west we culturally define the omniscient narrate as the accepted norm 'of older fiction ,but the very idea of the controlling artist has been condemned as  politically reactionary,even fascist.(Currie 1995:163)

'Metafictional strategies ,therefore ,are more than simply narcissistic,or at least they should be,for presenting the unrepresentable ,is an act of liberation.For Hutcheon,the metafiction aims to revolutionise literature as well as the society that produces it by forcing readers to look at language and texts in new ways:"the narcissistic novel as incitement to revolutionary activity would be the ultimate defence of self conscious fiction against claims of self preening introversion ". (Castle 1995:146)

Conclusion

What is evident is that lit texts are influenced by social and historical change and meta narratives to some extent are a basis of challenging the norm.In essence as Barth's puts it pedestrianised text,yet it makes us look deeper and examine the text outside its predestined box and reality and fiction become submerged.But this submergence is in particular in reference to Puig a tool of making us look deeper beyond the text,almost at a subconscious level.

 

Derrida and Deconstrcution

On the one hand, we must traverse a phase of overturning. To do justice to this necessity is to recognize that in a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand.
To deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment. To overlook this phase of overturning is to forget the conflictual and subordinating structure of opposition.

— "Interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta," in “Positions” pp.42^[18]

Derrida's work centered on challenging unquestioned assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition and also more broadly to Western culture as a whole.^[14] By questioning the fundamental norms and premises of the dominant discourses, and trying to modify them, he attempted to democratize the university scene and to politicize it.^[45] During the American 1980s culture wars, this would attract the anger of politically conservative and right-wing intellectuals who were trying to defend the status quo.^{[4][14][45][63]}
Derrida called his challenge to the assumptions of Western culture "deconstruction".^[14] On some occasions, Derrida referred to deconstruction as a radicalization of a certain spirit of Marxism.^[64][65]

Deconstruction

A major theory associated with Structuralism was binary opposition. This theory proposed that there are certain theoretical and conceptual opposites, often arranged in a hierarchy, which human logic has given to text. Such binary pairs could include Enlightenment/Romantic, male/female, speech/writing, rational/emotional, signifier/signified, symbolic/imaginary.
Post-structuralism rejects the notion of the essential quality of the dominant relation in the hierarchy, choosing rather to expose these relations and the dependency of the dominant term on its apparently subservient counterpart. The only way to properly understand these meanings is to deconstruct the assumptions and knowledge systems which produce the illusion of singular meaning. This act of deconstruction illuminates how male can become female, how speech can become writing, and how rational can become emotional.

[edit] Structuralism vs. Post-structuralism

Structuralists also seek to understand the historical interpretation of cultural concepts, but focus their efforts on understanding how those concepts were understood by the author in his or her own time, rather than how they may be understood by the reader in the present.

Derrida's lecture at Johns Hopkins

The occasional designation of post-structuralism as a movement can be tied to the fact that mounting criticism of structuralism became evident at approximately the same time that structuralism became a topic of interest in universities in the United States. This interest led to a 1966 conference at Johns Hopkins University that invited scholars who were thought to be prominent post-structuralists, including Derrida, Barthes, and Lacan.
Derrida's lecture at that conference, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences," often appears in collections as a manifesto against structuralism. Derrida's essay was one of the earliest to propose some theoretical limitations to structuralism, and to attempt to theorize on terms that were clearly no longer structuralist.
The element of "play" in the title of Derrida's essay is often erroneously taken to be "play" in a linguistic sense, based on a general tendency towards puns and humour, while social constructionism as developed in the later work of Michel Foucault is said to create a sense of strategic agency by laying bare the levers of historical change. The importance of Foucault's work is seen by many to be in its synthesis of this social/historical account of the operations of power (see governmentality).

[edit] Judith Butler and Gender Trouble

A major American thinker associated with post structuralist thought is Judith Butler. Trained in Continental philosophy and published on Hegel, Butler is better known for her engagement with feminist theory and as the 'mother' (along with English literature scholar Eve Sedgwick) of Queer Theory. In Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Butler explored the persistence of biological sex in feminist theory as the source and cause of the unequal social treatment and status of women. Using ideas about power and subjectification first broached by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish^[16], and the linguistic theories of J. L. Austin, Butler argued that sex was an effect rather than the cause of social gender difference, and that the fiction of a stable core gender identity was maintained through socially coerced performances of gender. Butler's ideas depend greatly on the notion of "performativity" and she is widely credited with introducing the term into gender studies. Austin described performative words as those which both describe and produce a thing. The classic example is a minister's statement, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," which both describes and produces two people as married. Similarly, Butler argued that repetitive socially coerced gender performances, which aspire to replicate a normative gender ideal, actually produce the sexed body and gender identity. In Gender Trouble, Butler also relied on deconstructionist language theory and Freudian psychoanalysis to argue that heterosexuality is structured in an ongoing series of losses stemming from a repudiation of homosexuality; as such homosexuality can be seen as constitutive of heterosexuality, necessitating its repeated repudiations. Butler embraced the Foucauldian notion that there is no "outside" to culture, and therefore resistance--even consciousness, volition, the self--to forms of oppression is always already structured in terms of that oppression. Therefore, resistance can only take the form of failed imitations of social norms, whose very failure reveals the structures of power that often masquerade as natural or the inevitable.

Judith Butler comparative to Baudrillard

Judith Butler

This page gives an introduction to Judith Butler and the arguments put forward in her 1990 book Gender Trouble. Her subsequent publications (see bibliography at the bottom of this page) are covered here less. There are also links to a good student essay on Butler, and some interview extracts (both on this site), as well as web resources on other sites. Our queer theory pages have also expanded -- now featuring reviews and discussion of criticisms of queer theory.
Who is Judith Butler?
Judith Butler (1956-) is Professor of Comparative Literature and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and is well known as a theorist of power, gender, sexuality and identity. Indeed, she is described in alt.culture as "one of the superstars of '90s academia, with a devoted following of grad students nationwide". (A fanzine, Judy!, was published in 1993).
What has she said?
In her most influential book Gender Trouble (1990), Butler argued that feminism had made a mistake by trying to assert that 'women' were a group with common characteristics and interests. That approach, Butler said, performed 'an unwitting regulation and reification of gender relations' -- reinforcing a binary view of gender relations in which human beings are divided into two clear-cut groups, women and men. Rather than opening up possibilities for a person to form and choose their own individual identity, therefore, feminism had closed the options down.
Butler notes that feminists rejected the idea that biology is destiny, but then developed an account of patriarchal culture which assumed that masculine and feminine genders would inevitably be built, by culture, upon 'male' and 'female' bodies, making the same destiny just as inescapable. That argument allows no room for choice, difference or resistance.
Butler prefers 'those historical and anthropological positions that understand gender as a relation among socially constituted subjects in specifiable contexts'. In other words, rather than being a fixed attribute in a person, gender should be seen as a fluid variable which shifts and changes in different contexts and at different times.
The very fact that women and men can say that they feel more or less 'like a woman' or 'like a man' shows, Butler points out, that 'the experience of a gendered... cultural identity is considered an achievement.'
Butler argues that sex (male, female) is seen to cause gender (masculine, feminine) which is seen to cause desire (towards the other gender). This is seen as a kind of continuum. Butler's approach -- inspired in part by Foucault -- is basically to smash the supposed links between these, so that gender and desire are flexible, free-floating and not 'caused' by other stable factors.
 
Butler says: 'There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; ... identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results.' (Gender Trouble, p. 25). In other words, gender is a performance; it's what you do at particular times, rather than a universal who you are.
Butler suggests that certain cultural configurations of gender have seized a hegemonic hold (i.e. they have come to seem natural in our culture as it presently is) -- but, she suggests, it doesn't have to be that way. Rather than proposing some utopian vision, with no idea of how we might get to such a state, Butler calls for subversive action in the present: 'gender trouble' -- the mobilization, subversive confusion, and proliferation of genders -- and therefore identity.
Butler argues that we all put on a gender performance, whether traditional or not, anyway, and so it is not a question of whether to do a gender performance, but what form that performance will take. By choosing to be different about it, we might work to change gender norms and the binary understanding of masculinity and femininity.
This idea of identity as free-floating, as not connected to an 'essence', but instead a performance, is one of the key ideas in queer theory. Seen in this way, our identities, gendered and otherwise, do not express some authentic inner "core" self but are the dramatic effect (rather than the cause) of our performances.
David Halperin has said, 'Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence.'
It's not (necessarily) just a view on sexuality, or gender. It also suggests that the confines of any identity can potentially be reinvented by its owner...
And finally -- what has this got to do with media and communications studies? Well, the call for gender trouble has obvious media implications, since the mass media is the primary means for alternative images to be disseminated. The media is therefore the site upon which this 'semiotic war' (a war of symbols, of how things are represented) would take place. Madonna is one media icon who can be seen to have brought queer theory to the masses.

---

This text summarising Gender Trouble is copyright © David Gauntlett, 1998. I say that just in case I want to use any of it in a book one day. Quotes from Gender Trouble copyright © Judith Butler / Routledge, 1990.

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Baudrillard and counter arguments

Baudrillard and Counter arguments to his theory of Simulcra

It is the obscenity of what no longer has any secret ,of what dissolves completely in information and communication...The schizo is bereft of every scene ,open to everything in spite of himself ,living in the greatest confusion ...He is himself obscene ,the obscene prey of the worlds obscenity...He is now only a pure screen ,a switching centre for all the networks of influence'.(Baudrillard 'The ecstasy of Communication ' in Foster (1985) Postmodern Culture.

On reading this extract ,I am actually examining how unaware as a consumer of information ,how much information is absorbed sub-consciously.For example have we really looked closely at the information we absorb from seeing a shop logo e.g Top Shop.Where is the original as a consumer we merely absorb the copies,situated in each town, like global icons of the place to shop ,creating a hybridity of

simulation ,occurring in the mass marketing of hundreds and thousands of copies ,no longer with an original.Yet does this not again reproduce itself in the human identity of people wearing the same copied product thus become a sea of identical people creating the same fluidity among humans, in essence become almost bad copies of each other.

'This would be the successive phases of the image:

It is the reflection of a basic reality

It masks and perverts a basic reality

It masks the absence of a basic reality

It bears no relation to any reality whatsoever ;it is its own pure simulacrum.

(Baudrillard ,The evil of images and precession of simulacra in Docherty(ed)(1993,Postmodernism ;A reader)

The Precession  of Simulcra
This evidently refers to the way that simulcra has preceded the real.A modern example of this is the map of the gulf war  preceded the real war. 

The first point I am going to make is that there are many negative connotations to the way Baudrillard thinks  and this is due to the fact that he believes that society ,in particular western,control 'human liberation' as they are suffocating the individual out of free thought by bombarding them with mass media messaging.Yet this is in retrospect one main theoretical observations which is a counter action to modernism.I'm next going to look at theorists  who are positive thinkers about post modernism.

1.

According to Norris ,Baudrillard does not look at the bigger picture of social living and despair,but seems to lock himself in cycle of looking at everything as a multiple of signs-which do not look at reality ,but simulated reality.

(Norris (1990)Whats wrong with Postmodernism;Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy)

2.According to Lyotard he sees postmodernism as a 'incredulity towards metanarratives'. Thus the genre is fusing together reality and truth and creating meta narratives.I shall look at these meta narratives in relationship to the Kiss Of The Spider Woman.Yet Lyotard wants to reject these meta narratives 'the local specific ,the provisional'. Thus a reverting to modernity a safe ,calm realist option.

(Lyotard (1979) Postmodernism,or The Cultural Logic of Late-Capitalism )

3.According To Jameson ,he gives a Marxist analysis on postmodernism and is realistically stating that the 'contemporary world reflects a new economy-post industrial capitalism.Key characteristics :multinational corporations beyond government control;depthlessness,the image/simulacrum ;weakening of historically ;new technologies ,globalisation  

In conclusion,

post modernity is deconstructing our perception of the world and how it was perceived from a  modernist perspective and it is evident that literature is effected by social and historical events.In particualr I shall look at metanarratives next. Yet it is also relevant to remember that these are only conceptual view points as according to Jenkins we are looking at ways history has been historicised post modernism.Thus the need for logical and coherent narrative has changed ,making or creating a metanarrative ,full of conflicting ideas and contradictions.(Malpas 2005:91)  

Simulations

Baudrillard (1981)Simulations

'mechanised reproduction has divided us from original/authentic objects: simulacra refers to the copy without an original.The persuasive influence of images from T.V ,film ,advertising ,technology etc has eroded the distinction between real and imagined ,reality and illusion ,surface and depth.Simulation refers to collapse of this distinction  between the real (original ,innate,substantive and simulated (constructed; imaginary) The result is a society/culture of hyperreality ;our reality is a construct /illusion.(Denby Postmodernism :Historical and contexts)

I'm going to look at this in terms of Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans. Firstly we are seeing simulacra or more than one plain,we are dealing with the actual image of the soup can as a

copy ,multiproduced,therefore it becomes a copy without an original.Yet also we are seeing the mechanisation of the whole process from the actual production of the can to the mass production of the prints.I have purposely picked these 2 prints as each image is from a different timeline ,therefore ,what we perceive to see are 2 different perspectives socially and historically.    

The first image also represents the clean cut repetitive image of technology which fuses a hyperreality into our consciousness and this is because of consumerism and how it effects the exchange value of that item.A can of soup ,has elements of food and nurture ,the brand selling a class value or ideal.Thus again we are subject to artificial simulation when as a consumer we accept the artificial as the norm.

the last image is a later image and I will look at it later in terms of deconstruction and Derrida.

Learning Outcomes and Postmodernism

Learning outcome 4 explain and evaluate the relationship between postmodern and or/contemporary lit and its socio-historical ,political and intellectual contexts.

postmodernism and the  crisis of humanism

'18th century origins of postmodernism manifest in counter-enlightenment philosophers and founders of

 anti -rationalism and romanticism(Hamman,Herder)Denby Postmodernism:Historical and critical contexts.

It is essential that the social and historical context is included in the 4 summeries,therefore I am going to use this blog page to understand the development of postmodernism.

Late 20thcentury 1960s/70s/80s/areas of development of POMO-philosophy-politics-sociology

Must look at Derrida ,Foucault, Deleuze (Denby pomo)

Poststructuralism

Well the first question is what is it actually about?

It is essence a opposition to structuralism-which is about how words and meanings are ordered centered within 'a close linguistic system'.Thus poststructralism is challenging these assumptions and in particular 'western philosophy'.

So in definition poststructuralism is challenging humanism and essentialism.

Defintion : so whats it doing?
 Modernism                                                                                        Post-Modernism

humanism/essentialism                                                                        post-structure

deferral               a                                                                             fluidity(decentred-fragmented)

fixed   (a fixed ideal or understanding)                                                 inate

reality                                                                                                 identity 

What is happening is a process of deconstruction,which in essence is breaking down the process of which we identify and makes us look as if underneath the paintwork of a picture.

Chief Theory

what has caused all this seemed to be linked to Globalisation -which affects the 'rate flow and direction of finance,information and individuals ,has amplified ,albeit problematically ,the theorising of fluid identity ...

thus disrupting boundries human/machine and human/animal ,further problematise notions of integral identity.'

(Denby POMO historical and critical contexts).

In my next blog I shall start to explore the theorists that I have chosen and how there notions influence the way we deconstruct our world.

The concept of postmodernism

I'm going to start by trying to understand first the concept of postmodernism and then look at the theoretical context of it through Adorno, ,Derrida and Foucalt and Baudrillard.Yet my first aim is to understand the concept of  modernism and its relation to post modernism,and in reality why it came about.
I intend to concentrate on these theorist first as when studying the module, I realised how much of what we see and understand about postmodernism is influenced by their conceptions of it.

'Postmodernism :a mode of thought ,strategy or aesthetic 
style ,which is the 'cultural dominant'(Jameson) of the late 20th century.E.g kitsch in TV soap operas,Hollywood B films...anti-linear ,metafictional ,hybrid and self conscious art forms'.(Dr.M.DenbyPostmodernism:Historical and Critical Contexts 29/9/11)
What can be ascertained from this quote is that we are dealing with a subculture which has come about due to social and historical change,which has in essence influenced the creation of this ideal.Thus it is evident that postmodernism is fulfilling what modernism cannot.As according to Venturi/Jencks architects ,it was seen as a challenge to modernism's universal /a historical aesthetics and it's aesthetic and social uniformity'.
(Denby :Postmodernism:Historical and critical contexts 29/11/11) Thus in this instance architects are challenging the 'human experience', by mixing 'pre-modern traditions as well as elitist and popular art forms.
I think it is important to understand that this art form is encompassing the whole of the arts,thus creating a melting pot of new experiences.
As according to Bell (sociologist) :the term post modern used to describe a historical era and sociocultural conditions.Drawing on structuralism,postmodernism rejects the Enlightenment's autonomous ,coherent subject/self (Descartes 'I think therefore I am' ) '.
(Denby:Postmodernism :historical and critical contexts 29/11/11) 
This is evidently showing that postmodernism therefore affects the natural reasoned concept of looking at things and makes us think in opposition to reality or our view of reasoning.Yet what it also evident that the concept of postmodernism and the crisis of 'humanism' ,is subjective to philosophical thinking a concept I shall explore in my next blog post.

Assessment

I'm going to start this blog ,firstly by writing down exactly what I need to do and what my learning outcomes

are ,as this will enable me to be able to double check that I am answering the brief of the assessment.

1.Construct an academic on line blog.

2.Must have a minimum of 4 critical and academic entries.This is designed to record your secondary academic research,your engagement with postmodern and contemporary lit,culture and society.

3. First 3 entries summery and evaluation of key concepts or theories relating to POMO and contemporary lit,culture and society.And will be based on (non literary )writings by seminal cultural commentators.

4.In the entries we must seek out potential interconnections and intersections between diff (comparable or oppositional )theories and approaches.

(Learning outcome 1 Explain the theoretical and critical concept of post modernism ,using correct terminology and criticism.

Learning outcome 4 Explain and evaluate the relationship between postmodernism and or contemporary lit and its socio-historical ,political and intellectual contexts. (2500 words)

5.The critical essay part of the blog

Critical analysis 1500 words -close reading of one of the texts studied on the module from the period marked by the emergence of postmoderism literary forms ,applying a minimum of 2  of the theories outlined and explored in the reading diary .

Learning outcome 2. Identify ,analyse and evaluate the key formal and thematic characteristics of postmodern and contemporary lit.

Learning outcome 3. Apply theoretical approaches and critical concepts in postmodernism and

contemp/lit/cultural theory to the analysis and evaluation of postmodern and contemp lit.

Learning outcome 4.Explain and evaluate the relationships between postmodern/and or contemp lit.

Learning outcome 5. Critically examine the ways in which cultural,political ,social and intellectual concerns/issues are explored at a thematic and formal level in postmodern/contemp/lit