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* Invisibles & Postmodernism

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The Natural Way

11:27 / 09.01.02

It's a shame you couldn't do Black Science 2 as well - where the more deterministic elements of the movie start to collapse. In fact, I think the whole Pavlov's Dogs/Schrodinger's Cats issues really describe the whole post-modern *struggle* against the modernist paradigm much more eloquently than Black Science 1, which does the whole pop thing that Tom was complaining about.

20:19 / 09.01.02

Oh, God, I don't have a definition of postmodernism, that's for the students to come up with. Hang on, let me look at my reading list: um, it's a bit incoherent, but I'm shying away from the sort of "postmodernism is pastiche" ("junk/eclectic postmodernism") definitions as well as from the "postmodernism is radical cultural relativism with no possibility for ethical or political action" definitions. I'm going more towards philosophical problems of reproduction and relations to the past/the Other, and the sorts of ethical-political problems raised by the awareness that values are culturally constructed.

I would, however, argue that postmodernism's scepticism towards and complexification of the idea of filiation makes "bastardization" quite a good thing, but now I'm just showing off...

At the moment it looks like I'll be teaching 'Bloody Hell In America' in week 8, "History", along with Benjamin, Habermas, Eco and Spivak (this comes straight after Week 5 on Language/Spectacle, with Saussure, Lacan, Derrida, deBord and Baudrillard). Poor little students. But I'm still juggling.

09:25 / 10.01.02

I hope this isn't too side-tracky, but I find Susan Bordo's book Unbearable Weight very smart and accessible to students--partly because she uses advertisements to explore issues of feminism, poststructuralism, and representation. In fact, one of her chapters offers a very cogent discussion of poststructuralism (I believe that's the term she focuses on, rather than postmodernism, but I could be wrong and don't have the book here to check) in the context of feminism, which is about the clearest thing I've read.

cheers, alas.

09:58 / 10.01.02

Please tell me the Benjamin they're going to read isn't the mechanical reproduction essay - it really annoys me the way so many people go on about that piece. 'Theses on the philosophy of history' would be better in a 'postmodern cultures' context, I reckon, or possible 'Critique of Violence' in terms of Bloody Hell in America.

09:58 / 10.01.02

In the 'History' section they're getting 'Theses on the Philosophy of History', in the 'Reproduction' section they're getting the Work of Art, because I love it and I don't care what you say. I can't teach the critique of violence because I can't make head nor tail of it.

And thanks for the recommendation, alas: I'll see if I can find it anywhere. I do need more introductory-type books (and, oddly given my personal biasses, more feminism.)

[ 10-01-2002: Message edited by: Deva ]

14:04 / 10.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Deva:
I'm going more towards philosophical problems of reproduction and relations to the past/the Other, and the sorts of ethical-political problems raised by the awareness that values are culturally constructed.

That Bobby Murray story...
Just sayin', is all....

00:41 / 11.01.02

If you get any really good essays on the Invisibles, you should talk to the student about sending them this way. Be interesting to read, and the Bomb could use some silling out.

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