Re: Defining "post-modernism" -- WAS--- First define "post-modern"photography, dammit

[Bob and Carla <bb333@earthlink.net>]

for clarification....the post-structural movement that resulted from  
post-modernism had some very interesting things done by Roland  
Barthes and Umberto Eco's semiotics....then opening into what is  
populary referred to as "deconstructionist" field that included Paul  
DeMann, Noam Chomsky and the French deconstructionists including  
Michael Baktihn.

      My issue with deconstruction is the factor we are addressing  
here. Reinterpretation of ideas by people outside of the original  
experience. For example, I've seen comments like this, "T.S. Eliot  
cannot be taken for his stated interests or intentions because his  
post-Fruedian expatriation made him pathologically incapable to  
understand his own thoughts and intentions. Therefore, we will take  
words as symbols and re-analyze his art. and determine for ourselves  
what he was saying." For my money, this sounds like neo-Maoist re- 
education.

Bob


On Nov 19, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Bob and Carla wrote:

> I think that this conclusion is pointing more towards post- 
> structural theory and criticism.....which as much followed  
> postmodernism (re-inventing history, etc.)
>
> Bob
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2007, at 8:14 AM, Katharine Thayer wrote:
>
> > On Nov 18, 2007, at 8:33 PM, Don Sweet wrote:
> > > Isn't it more plausible that the rise of PM ideas has directly  
> > > contributed
> > > to the recent success of war rhetoric ......
> >
> > I think you're onto something here.  Several years ago I read a  
> > well-written and well-thought book by a Bosnian academic who had  
> > survived the siege of Sarajevo and argued rather persuasively   
> > that  postmodern thought and literature was in large part  
> > responsible for the Bosnian war.
> >
> > PM education, I believe, also largely responsible for the  
> > inability of many on this list to consider issues from a  
> > scientific viewpoint, leading to a tendency to misperceive  
> > differing observation as  personal attack, or to accept anecdote,  
> > or even entirely unsubstantiated opinion,  as proof.    (To bring  
> > this back somewhat in range of topic.)
> > kt