Book•
The Politics of Postmodernism
01 Jan 1989-
TL;DR: In this article, the postmodernist representation is de-naturalized the natural, Photographic discourse, Telling Stories: fiction and history, Re-presenting the past: 'total history' de-totalized, Knowing the past in the present, The archive as text.
Abstract: General editor's preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Representing the postmodern: What is postmodernism? Representation and its politics, Whose postmodernism? Postmodernity, postmodernism, and modernism. 2. Postmodernist representation: De-naturalizing the natural, Photographic discourse, Telling Stories: fiction and history. 3. Re-presenting the past: 'Total history' de-totalized, Knowing the past in the present, The archive as text. 4. The politics of parody: Parodic postmodern representation, Double-coded politics, Postmodern film? 5. Text/image border tensions: The paradoxes of photography, The ideological arena of photo-graphy, The politics of address 6. Postmodernism and feminisms: Politicizing desire, Feminist postmodernist parody, The private and the public. Concluding note: some directed reading. Bibliography. Index.
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01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The Slovenian art collective Laibach as discussed by the authors remythologises totalitarian iconography associated with Nazi Kunst and Socialist Realism, and explores the unfinished narrative of Communism and the legacy of the European traumatic historical in the context of a post-ideological age.
Abstract: This paper reflects a study in how the Slovenian art collective the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst), and more specifically its sub-group Laibach, interrogate the representation of Central and Eastern European cultural memory in the context of post-Socialism, and operate as a nexus between Eastern Europe and the West. Emerging in the wake of Tito's death and shaped by the break-up of Yugoslavia, the NSK were founded in 1984, in Ljubljana (northern Slovenia). The NSK is a multi-disciplinary collective primarily comprised of three groups: IRWIN (visual arts), Noordung (theatre), and its most influential delivery system, Laibach (music). Brought to academic scrutiny in the West by Slavoj Žižek for their subversive strategy of over-identification with the totalitarian spectacle, Laibach are Slovenia’s most famous cultural export, with a global following, and an international and domestic history of controversy. With the strategy of Retrogardism, Laibach and the NSK re-mythologise totalitarian iconography associated with Nazi Kunst and Socialist Realism. Through this process of re-mythologisation Laibach explore the unfinished narrative of Communism and the legacy of the European traumatic historical in the context of a ‘post-ideological’ age.
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Cites background from "The Politics of Postmodernism"
...…Western Europe is echoed by Fredric Jameson when he berates Western parodic art as being simply narcissistic, an indictment of consumer capitalism itself, an alarming and pathological symptom of a society that has become incapable of dealing with time and history (cited in Hutcheon, 1989, p. 113)....
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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2013
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TL;DR: The deconstruction and reconstruction of gender identity as it is posited by Brazilian writer Helena Parente Cunha (1929) in her novel Mulher no espelho was examined by as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This paper examines the deconstruction and reconstruction of gender identity as it is posited by Brazilian writer Helena Parente Cunha (1929) in her novel Mulher no espelho. Parente Cun ha's text lends itself to an interpretation circumscribed by contemporary currents of feminist theory that postulate a radical reconsideration of how the parameters of gender identity are defined. Identity construction is now being conceived in terms of a continuing, dialectical process of self-identification. This perspective is evident in the majority of critical formulations put forth by the postmodernist branch of feminist theory and by queer theory, which seek to present identity not as a stable self-identical concept but rather one that is elusive, undefinable, and in a constant state of flux. Parente Cunha's text may be said to relate directly to theories concerning the construction of "normal" versus "abnormal" sexuality (Foucault, de Lauretis). The author utilizes the narrative space of the novel to demonstrate how the technologies of gender not only include the discourses of patriarchal institutions but also may be found in the rhetoric of many contemporary feminist groups, which attempt to provide all-encompassing notions of exactly what the identity construct of Woman is, or should be. Mulher no espelho brings to the fore the ways in which Woman has been codified by both patriarchal and feminist ideologies. Furthermore, it proposes a questioning of those structures of authority that impede an individual's opportunity to develop an identity that lies outside the prescribed versions. The author presents gender as performance, a flexible, ever changing construct as well as one tied to the particular political and economic factors in a given society (de Lauretis, Butler, Fuss). Mulher no espelho was published in 1983, and it won Brazil's Cruz e Sousa award, in part for its capacity to portray the conflicts of one woman's experience but also for the profound psychological characterization of the protagonist, who finds herself alone at the age of forty-five, meditating on her life in front of a multipaneled mirror. She narrates her story using the first person while her image in the mirror uses the second-person to provide an alternate understanding of the past and present. The mirror, a constant presence in the novel, is of central importance. According to Lacan, the mirror signals the first moment of recognizing oneself, and yet it can only provide the illusion of totality. In a thought-provoking study related to the role of the mirror in women's writing, Jenijoy La Belle has noted that it is through the mirror that a woman will often begin to consider who she is. Moreover, she will try to envision herself as a man would see her. In this way the mirror is used to confer identity (Herself Beheld: The Literature of the Looking Glass 1988). In Mulher no espelho, however, there is a reappropriation of the mirror, an attempt to extricate it
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TL;DR: A detailed analysis of two war sequences from Oudisie! (Audition!) and Met permissie gese (By your leave) can be found in this article.
Abstract: War is a consistent theme throughout the European cabaret. It is also familiar to the Afrikaans cabaret form and occurs regularly in Hennie Aucamp's writing. The nature thereof can be gauged by a detailed analysis of two war sequences from Oudisie! (Audition!) and Met permissie gese (By your leave). The first example is the final scene from Oudisie!: a monologue, “Die laaste soldaat” (“The last soldier”), leading into a song, “Die afwaartse spinal” (“The downward spiral”) and concluding with a projection. Aucamp formulates his argument firstly by a statement veiled as an example (the monologue), followed by a commentary on the example (the song) and men a synthesis of the two using the words of a Black philosopher with a projection. This clearly captures Aucamp's vision of life as reflected in his work: death, decadence and the imperfection of our earthly existence. He protests against the insensitivity of those denying the soldier his humanity by exposing him to violence. It is also reminiscent ...
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01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, Matei Călinescu discusses the characteristics of post-modern rewriting and discusses the reader who will not only become deeply absorbed but will possibly cross the threshold from purely mental re-writing to real creative writing.
Abstract: Shortly after the publication of Rereading, Matei Călinescu writes an essay entitled “Rewriting,” in which he discusses the characteristics of postmodern rewriting. The move is not surprising. As Călinescu states in this essay, rewriting “is tied in various fashions to reading and rereading” (243). In Rereading, his discussions of “reading as a form of mental (re) writing” (76) led to their being sometimes used interchangeably, as when he writes of “writerly rereading or mental rewriting” (277). Also, in the Epilogue, he discusses the “reader who will not only become deeply absorbed but will possibly cross the threshold from purely mental (re)writing to real creative writing” (275). In the opening paragraphs of “Rewriting,” he goes on to explain that “the repeated reading of certain classics over time generates the idea of rewriting them,” adding that, “more importantly,” “rewriting ideally asks for rereading, or for the kind of attention that is characteristic of reflective rereading, both in regard to the master text and to the text that is derived from it” (243). For me, however, as a student of Matei at the time, the move also felt threatening. To his question, “what will you write your dissertation on?”, repeated at intervals at departmental picnics or in the elevator of Ballantine Hall, the building that houses the Comparative Literature Program at Indiana University, where he had been teaching since 1973, I had
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