U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: Defining "post-modernism" -- WAS--- First define "post-modern"pho

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

On Nov 19, 2007, at 6:32 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


Hmm, since this post quotes my post, I must assume the "conclusion" referred to is mine, but there's no conclusion in my post, just an opinion. ("I believe" denotes an opinion; a conclusion would be necessarily supported by citation of specific evidence all pointing in one direction and incapable of other interpretation; I've certainly drawn no conclusion here, just voiced an opinion.)

But this constutes further illustration of the different aspects people focus on when they define postmodernism. I have no problem with making a distinction between postmodernism and poststructuralism, except that they're not always clearly distinguished, and when they are, the distinction is often muddled. I've relied on texts that frame the whole of postmodernism as a critique of Enlightenment rationality. Whether that's a conflation of postmodernism with poststructuralism, I surely couldn't say. My point being, and continuing to be, that there don't seem to be definitions that everyone agrees to, even the people whose business it is to provide definitions.
Katharine





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