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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DOI•
01 Jan 1993Abstract: The present study brings to light the limitations of Parsons' (1987) stage theory of aesthetic development by facilitating a critical examination of it through the postmodern tenets manifest within critical pedagogy. It is pointed out that the aesthetic phenomenon exists as an entity within experience which ultimately denies definitive conceptual absolutes in its description. A divergency of theoretical positions within aesthetic traditions are reviewed so as to convey the problems and limitations of an aesthetic developmental theory which restricts responses to a designated sequence of possibilities. Aesthetic experience exists as a complex network of alternatives, not easily ordered into clearly definable conceptual frameworks from which to base teaching practices. Although Parsons' theory offers a structured order which identifies sequentially appropriate objectives for the teaching of aesthetics, it is critically rendered suspect based on the philosophical predispositions of critical pedagogy. It is argued that ideological biases maintained through cultural membership serve to orient researcher and subject belief systems so as to allow for normative behaviour(s) to be presented as given and natural rather than their being considered as culturally legitimated developments. Parsons' structural theory, which offers a strictly Eurocentrically biased conceptual itinerary, is critically assessed for the moral and ethical implication it imposes on subordinate group populations. Marginalized group belief systems are implicitly denied due recognition as valid and valuable options within experience. Critical pedagogy, as it is delineated within the present study, exposes the limiting and restrictive nature of an educational agenda which offers a definitive and a closed system of developmental possibilities.
8 citations
Cites background from "The Politics of Postmodernism"
...Postmodernism essentially delegitimizes positivist tendencies to supply objectivized solutions to questions regarding truth and reason while appreciating the dependent nature of all understandings relative to unique and multivariate experiences (Giroux, 1990; Lyotard, 1991; Derrida, 19'76: Baudrillard, 1983)....
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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an argumentative thesis that Foe is a self-reflexive novel that reflects the aesthetics of novel making of its own time, and connect this novel with other works written by Coetzee.
Abstract: Nobel prize winner John Maxwell Coetzee published Foe in 1987. When reading that novel, we are taken back to Robinson Crusoe’s island – and, consequently, to the world of Daniel Defoe’s fiction. The aim of this work is to undertake the reading of Coetzee’s Foe as a study on the aesthetics of novelmaking. This is an argumentative thesis, divided into three parts. Chapter one introduces the author and contextualizes the discussions on Writing, History and Fiction. Chapter two brings the theoretical background, that consists of the presentation of Linda Hutcheon’s ideas about Historiography and Patricia Waugh’s conceptualizations on Metafiction, both of them relating to Walter Benjamin’s poetic reference to the Angel of History. The third part submits an analysis of Foe, and connects this novel with the other works written by Coetzee. In the conclusion, I hope to validate the thesis proposed, that Foe is, ultimately, a self-reflexive novel that reflects the aesthetics of novel making of its own time. Key-words: J. M. Coetzee – Foe – Intertextuality Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe Metafiction
8 citations
TL;DR: Andrade's anthropophagical cultural project has been the subject of much intellectual debate since May 1st, 1928, when his Manifesto Antropofago was published in the first issue of the Revista de antropofagia in Sao Paulo as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: OSWALD de Andrade's anthropophagical cultural project has been the subject of much intellectual debate since May 1st, 1928, when his Manifesto Antropofago was published in the first issue of the Revista de Antropofagia in Sao Paulo. The manifesto outlined the ideas that were the focus of the Semana de Arte Moderna in Sao Paulo in 1922, when several Brazilian intellectuals demanded a revaluation and reshaping of Brazilian national identity based on the metaphor derived from the cannibalistic act. As Andrade was one of the leading figures of Brazilian modernismo, it is not surprising that his work has been discussed primarily within the context of that movement. Andrade's Manifesto Antropofago, which was very much in line with the avant-garde European manifestos of the time, was a powerful intellectual declaration that stated, among other things, that Brazil was still culturally colonized and that it was time to do away with such a mentality of dependence. In this context, his text invokes the image of the primitive cannibal and uses it as a symbol of resistance against the colonizing Portuguese culture. He writes against the nineteenth century romantics who idealized the figure of the good savage, creating the image of an innovative, revolutionary savage. The overt and, at times, humorous condemnation of colonization, the critical emphasis on Brazilian intellectual dependence, the debunking of official historical discourse, and ultimately the proposition to value the margins and repel the centers, are some of the elements that allow us to read the Antropofagia project, as revealed in Andrade's Manifesto Antropofago, as well as in his earlier Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brasil (1924) and in his poetry, not only through the lenses of modernismo, but also as an example of what is now considered post-colonial thought. Indeed, a great deal of Andrade's work can be interpreted from a postcolonial perspective. In other words, Andrade's concept of Antropofagia can be understood on the basis of its ideological positioning towards a historical and cultural colonization, rather than merely in the context of the ideas of the time period in which it was articulated as a cultural discourse. The notion of cultural cannibalism itself, if interpreted as the appropriation of dominant and hegemonic cultures by subordinated or marginal groups, reveals a post-colonial impetus, in that it proposes re-readings of power relations that give emphasis to the agency implicated in cultural change. Additionally, cultural cannibalism has an empowering connotation beyond the concepts of borrowing, acquisition, and assimilation. The image of violence, which it embodies--and, in the case of Andrade's work, simultaneously subverts because it exposes the colonizer's brutality--makes it an act of possession (or re-possession), which inverts fallacious views of civilization and savagery, cultural superiority and inferiority, and originality and imitation, thus empowering the peripheral post-colonial culture. The importance of the idea of cannibalism in the colonial Americas is well-known. It was a mark of difference outlined within a judgmental system of values that favored the European cultural framework and ignored and disrespected the native peoples' traditions. Anthropophagy was synonymous with savagery, violence, and paganism. Including it in the discussion of colonization at the time automatically evokes notions of right and wrong, and/or civilization and backwardness. These critical constructions came from the perspective of the explorers, due to their positions of power and ideological motivations. Cannibalism prevented the Europeans from identifying with the Amerindians, as the mention of its existence intensified the former group's level of perception of the latter's alterity. The natives were seen not only as exotic, but as dangerous and inhumane as well. Since cannibalism was often attached to notions of monstrosity--whether cannibals or not--the natives were repeatedly portrayed as cruel, godless savages, who posed a threat to the explorers. …
8 citations