Postmodernism

Structuralism was a philosophical movement developed by French academics in the 1950s, partly in response to French existentialism,[47] and often interpreted in relation to modernism and high modernism. Thinkers who have been called "structuralists" include the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and the semiotician Algirdas Greimas. The early writings of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the literary theorist Roland Barthes have also been called "structuralist". Those who began as structuralists but became post-structuralists include Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and Gilles Deleuze. Other post-structuralists include Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-François Lyotard, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and Luce Irigaray. The American cultural theorists, critics, and intellectuals whom they influenced include Judith Butler, John Fiske, Rosalind Krauss, Avital Ronell, and Hayden White.

Like structuralists, post-structuralists start from the assumption that people's identities, values, and economic conditions determine each other rather than having intrinsic properties that can be understood in isolation.[48] Thus the French structuralists considered themselves to be espousing relativism and constructionism. But they nevertheless tended to explore how the subjects of their study might be described, reductively, as a set of essential relationships, schematics, or mathematical symbols. (An example is Claude Lévi-Strauss's algebraic formulation of mythological transformation in "The Structural Study of Myth"[49]).

Postmodernism entails reconsideration of the entire Western value system (love, marriage, popular culture, shift from an industrial to a service economy) that took place since the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in the Social Revolution of 1968—are described with the term postmodernity,[50] as opposed to postmodernism, a term referring to an opinion or movement.[51] Post-structuralism is characterized by new ways of thinking through structuralism, contrary to the original form.[52]

One of the most well-known postmodernist concerns is deconstruction, a theory for philosophy, literary criticism, and textual analysis developed by Jacques Derrida.[53] Critics have insisted that Derrida's work is rooted in a statement found in Of Grammatology: "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte" ('there is nothing outside the text'). Such critics misinterpret the statement as denying any reality outside of books. The statement is actually part of a critique of "inside" and "outside" metaphors when referring to the text, and is a corollary to the observation that there is no "inside" of a text as well.[54] This attention to a text's unacknowledged reliance on metaphors and figures embedded within its discourse is characteristic of Derrida's approach. Derrida's method sometimes involves demonstrating that a given philosophical discourse depends on binary oppositions or excluding terms that the discourse itself has declared to be irrelevant or inapplicable. Derrida's philosophy inspired a postmodern movement called deconstructivism among architects, characterized by a design that rejects structural "centers" and encourages decentralized play among its elements. Derrida discontinued his involvement with the movement after the publication of his collaborative project with architect Peter Eisenman in Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman.[55]

The connection between postmodernism, posthumanism, and cyborgism has led to a challenge to postmodernism, for which the terms Post-postmodernism and postpoststructuralism were first coined in 2003:[56][57]

In some sense, we may regard postmodernism, posthumanism, poststructuralism, etc., as being of the 'cyborg age' of mind over body. Deconference was an exploration in post-cyborgism (i.e. what comes after the postcorporeal era), and thus explored issues of postpostmodernism, postpoststructuralism, and the like. To understand this transition from 'pomo' (cyborgism) to 'popo' (postcyborgism) we must first understand the cyborg era itself.[58]

More recently metamodernism, post-postmodernism and the "death of postmodernism" have been widely debated: in 2007 Andrew Hoberek noted in his introduction to a special issue of the journal Twentieth-Century Literature titled "After Postmodernism" that "declarations of postmodernism's demise have become a critical commonplace". A small group of critics has put forth a range of theories that aim to describe culture or society in the alleged aftermath of postmodernism, most notably Raoul Eshelman (performatism), Gilles Lipovetsky (hypermodernity), Nicolas Bourriaud (altermodern), and Alan Kirby (digimodernism, formerly called pseudo-modernism). None of these new theories or labels have so far gained very widespread acceptance. Sociocultural anthropologist Nina Müller-Schwarze offers neostructuralism as a possible direction.[59] The exhibition Postmodernism – Style and Subversion 1970–1990 at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 24 September 2011 – 15 January 2012) was billed as the first show to document postmodernism as a historical movement.

Jacques Derrida was a French-Algerian philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology.[61][62][63] He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.[64][65][66]

Derrida re-examined the fundamentals of writing and its consequences on philosophy in general; sought to undermine the language of "presence" or metaphysics in an analytical technique which, beginning as a point of departure from Heidegger's notion of Destruktion, came to be known as deconstruction.[67]

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and literary critic. First associated with structuralism, Foucault created an oeuvre that today is seen as belonging to post-structuralism and to postmodern philosophy. Considered a leading figure of French theory, his work remains fruitful in the English-speaking academic world in a large number of sub-disciplines. The Times Higher Education Guide described him in 2009 as the most cited author in the humanities.[68]

Michel Foucault introduced concepts such as discursive regime, or re-invoked those of older philosophers like episteme and genealogy in order to explain the relationship between meaning, power, and social behavior within social orders (see The Order of Things, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality).[69][70][71][72]

Influenced by Nietzsche,[73] Jean-François Lyotard is credited with being the first to use the term in a philosophical context, in his 1979 work The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. In it, he follows Wittgenstein's language games model and speech act theory, contrasting two different language games, that of the expert, and that of the philosopher. He talks about the transformation of knowledge into information in the computer age and likens the transmission or reception of coded messages (information) to a position within a language game.[3]

Lyotard defined philosophical postmodernism in The Postmodern Condition, writing: "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives...." [74] where what he means by metanarrative is something like a unified, complete, universal, and epistemically certain story about everything that is. Postmodernists reject metanarratives because they reject the concept of truth that metanarratives presuppose. Postmodernist philosophers, in general, argue that truth is always contingent on historical and social context rather than being absolute and universal—and that truth is always partial and "at issue" rather than being complete and certain.[3]

Richard Rorty argues in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature that contemporary analytic philosophy mistakenly imitates scientific methods. In addition, he denounces the traditional epistemological perspectives of representationalism and correspondence theory that rely upon the independence of knowers and observers from phenomena and the passivity of natural phenomena in relation to consciousness.

Jean Baudrillard, in Simulacra and Simulation, introduced the concept that reality or the principle of the Real is short-circuited by the interchangeability of signs in an era whose communicative and semantic acts are dominated by electronic media and digital technologies. For Baudrillard, "simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal."[75]

Fredric Jameson set forth one of the first expansive theoretical treatments of postmodernism as a historical period, intellectual trend, and social phenomenon in a series of lectures at the Whitney Museum, later expanded as Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991).[76]

In Analysis of the Journey, a journal birthed from postmodernism, Douglas Kellner insists that the "assumptions and procedures of modern theory" must be forgotten. Extensively, Kellner analyzes the terms of this theory in real-life experiences and examples.[77] Kellner used science and technology studies as a major part of his analysis; he urged that the theory is incomplete without it. The scale was larger than just postmodernism alone; it must be interpreted through cultural studies where science and technology studies play a huge role. The reality of the September 11 attacks on the United States of America is the catalyst for his explanation. In response, Kellner continues to examine the repercussions of understanding the effects of the 11 September attacks. He questions if the attacks are only able to be understood in a limited form of postmodern theory due to the level of irony.[78]

The conclusion he depicts is simple: postmodernism, as most use it today, will decide what experiences and signs in one's reality will be one's reality as they know it.[79]

Neue Staatsgalerie (1977–84), Stuttgart, Germany, designed by the British architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford, showing the eclectic mix of classical architecture and colourful ironic detailing.

Ray and Maria Stata Center (2004), designed by the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Modern Architecture, as established and developed by Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, was focused on:

• the attempted harmony of form and function;[80] and,
• the dismissal of "frivolous ornament."[81][82]
• the pursuit of a perceived ideal perfection;

They argued for architecture that represented the spirit of the age as depicted in cutting-edge technology, be it airplanes, cars, ocean liners, or even supposedly artless grain silos.[83] Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is associated with the phrase "less is more".

Critics of Modernism have:

• argued that the attributes of perfection and minimalism are themselves subjective;
• pointed out anachronisms in modern thought; and,
• questioned the benefits of its philosophy.[84]

The intellectual scholarship regarding postmodernism and architecture is closely linked with the writings of critic-turned-architect Charles Jencks, beginning with lectures in the early 1970s and his essay "The Rise of Post Modern Architecture" from 1975.[85] His magnum opus, however, is the book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, first published in 1977, and since running to seven editions.[86] Jencks makes the point that Post-Modernism (like Modernism) varies for each field of art, and that for architecture it is not just a reaction to Modernism but what he terms double coding: "Double Coding: the combination of Modern techniques with something else (usually traditional building) in order for architecture to communicate with the public and a concerned minority, usually other architects."[87] In their book, "Revisiting Postmodernism", Terry Farrell and Adam Furman argue that postmodernism brought a more joyous and sensual experience to the culture, particularly in architecture.[88]

Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. Cultural production manifesting as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art, deconstructionist display, and multimedia, particularly involving video, are described as postmodern.[89]

April Greiman

Early mention of postmodernism as an element of graphic design appeared in the British magazine, "Design".[90] A characteristic of postmodern graphic design is that "retro, techno, punk, grunge, beach, parody, and pastiche were all conspicuous trends. Each had its own sites and venues, detractors and advocates."[91]

Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature

Jorge Luis Borges' (1939) short story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote", is often considered as predicting postmodernism[92] and is a paragon of the ultimate parody.[93] Samuel Beckett is also considered an important precursor and influence. Novelists who are commonly connected with postmodern literature include Vladimir Nabokov, William Gaddis, Umberto Eco, Pier Vittorio Tondelli, John Hawkes, William S. Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut, John Barth, Jean Rhys, Donald Barthelme, E. L. Doctorow, Richard Kalich, Jerzy Kosiński, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon[94] (Pynchon's work has also been described as high modern[95]), Ishmael Reed, Kathy Acker, Ana Lydia Vega, Jáchym Topol and Paul Auster.

In 1971, the American scholar Ihab Hassan published The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature, an early work of literary criticism from a postmodern perspective that traces the development of what he calls "literature of silence" through Marquis de Sade, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, and many others, including developments such as the Theatre of the Absurd and the nouveau roman.

In Postmodernist Fiction (1987), Brian McHale details the shift from modernism to postmodernism, arguing that the former is characterized by an epistemological dominant and that postmodern works have developed out of modernism and are primarily concerned with questions of ontology.[96] McHale's second book, Constructing Postmodernism (1992), provides readings of postmodern fiction and some contemporary writers who go under the label of cyberpunk. McHale's "What Was Postmodernism?" (2007)[97] follows Raymond Federman's lead in now using the past tense when discussing postmodernism.

American singer-songwriter Madonna

Jonathan Kramer has written that avant-garde musical compositions (which some would consider modernist rather than postmodernist) "defy more than seduce the listener, and they extend by potentially unsettling means the very idea of what music is."[98] In the 1960s, composers such as Terry Riley, Henryk Górecki, Bradley Joseph, John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Lou Harrison reacted to the perceived elitism and dissonant sound of atonal academic modernism by producing music with simple textures and relatively consonant harmonies, whilst others, most notably John Cage challenged the prevailing narratives of beauty and objectivity common to Modernism.

Author on postmodernism, Dominic Strinati, has noted, it is also important "to include in this category the so-called 'art rock' musical innovations and mixing of styles associated with groups like Talking Heads, and performers like Laurie Anderson, together with the self-conscious 'reinvention of disco' by the Pet Shop Boys".[99]

In the late-20th century, avant-garde academics labelled American singer Madonna, as the "personification of the postmodern",[100] with Christian writer Graham Cray saying that "Madonna is perhaps the most visible example of what is called post-modernism",[101] and Martin Amis described her as "perhaps the most postmodern personage on the planet".[101] She was also suggested by assistant professor Olivier Sécardin of Utrecht University to epitomise postmodernism.[102]

Modernism sought to design and plan cities that followed the logic of the new model of industrial mass production; reverting to large-scale solutions, aesthetic standardisation, and prefabricated design solutions.[103] Modernism eroded urban living by its failure to recognise differences and aim towards homogeneous landscapes (Simonsen 1990, 57). Jane Jacobs' 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities[104] was a sustained critique of urban planning as it had developed within Modernism and marked a transition from modernity to postmodernity in thinking about urban planning (Irving 1993, 479).

The transition from Modernism to Postmodernism is often said to have happened at 3:32 pm on 15 July in 1972, when Pruitt–Igoe, a housing development for low-income people in St. Louis designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, which had been a prize-winning version of Le Corbusier's 'machine for modern living,' was deemed uninhabitable and was torn down (Irving 1993, 480). Since then, Postmodernism has involved theories that embrace and aim to create diversity. It exalts uncertainty, flexibility and change (Hatuka & D'Hooghe 2007) and rejects utopianism while embracing a utopian way of thinking and acting.[105] Postmodernity of 'resistance' seeks to deconstruct Modernism and is a critique of the origins without necessarily returning to them (Irving 1993, 60). As a result of Postmodernism, planners are much less inclined to lay a firm or steady claim to there being one single 'right way' of engaging in urban planning and are more open to different styles and ideas of 'how to plan' (Irving 474).[103][105][106][107]

The postmodern approach to understanding the city were pioneered in the 1980s by what could be called the "Los Angeles School of Urbanism" centered on the UCLA's Urban Planning Department in the 1980s, where contemporary Los Angeles was taken to be the postmodern city par excellence, contra posed to what had been the dominant ideas of the Chicago School formed in the 1920s at the University of Chicago, with its framework of urban ecology and emphasis on functional areas of use within a city, and the concentric circles to understand the sorting of different population groups.[108] Edward Soja of the Los Angeles School combined Marxist and postmodern perspectives and focused on the economic and social changes (globalization, specialization, industrialization/deindustrialization, Neo-Liberalism, mass migration) that lead to the creation of large city-regions with their patchwork of population groups and economic uses.[108][109]

The French psychotherapist and philosopher, Félix Guattari, rejected its theoretical assumptions by arguing that the structuralist and postmodernist visions of the world were not flexible enough to seek explanations in psychological, social, and environmental domains at the same time.[128]

In an interview, Jean Baudrillard noted: "[ Transmodernism etc] are better terms than “postmodernism”. It is not about modernity; it is about every system that has developed its mode of expression to the extent that it surpasses itself and its own logic. This is what I am trying to analyze." "There is no longer any ontologically secret substance. I perceive this to be nihilism rather than postmodernism. To me, nihilism is a good thing – I am a nihilist, not a postmodernist."[129]