Once Again, from the Top: More Pomo Promo

Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, 2001

2016

The Sociological Review, 2008

As its title suggests, this paper explores certain directions a specifically postmodern sociology (rather than say a sociology of postmodernism) might take. It reinterprets Gouldner's prescient warnings of a crisis in 'academic' sociology as an expression of despair within modem sociology. In particular, three important 'contradictions' are examined as possible points of departure for a postmodern sociological discourse. Foucault's genealogical approach, it is argued, is useful in helping to orientate any attempts to develop a sociology of this kind. The analysis concludes by anticipating possible objections, showing how these might profitably be incorporated into future enquiries. The aim of the paper is not to offer concrete enunciations for a postmodern sociology, but to develop more modest rules of thumb through which such a discourse might be erected.

Postmodernism and the Contemporary Novel: A …

Studies in Political Economy, 1992

The present study probes into the controversial issue of postmodernism. More specifically, it is an attempt to answer the question of whether our era has enough distinctive features to be described as ‘postmodern’. According to some commentators, the postmodern era is characterized by three features that distinguish it from the modern era: the failure of the Enlightenment project, the growth of intracommunal ethnic diversity and the ever-growing pace of social, economic and technological change. By a closer inspection of the contemporary state of affairs, especially from an educational point of view, the researchers tried to answer the above-mentioned question. At the end of the study, some educational implications and criticisms of postmodernism have been provided.

Comunicação e Sociedade, Modernidade e Pós-Modernidade, Coordenação do volume : Albertino Gonçalves e Jean-Martin Rabot, Vol. 18, 2010, pp. 41-51., 2010

Is there such thing as a postmodern gesture ? We propose to reflect on the cultural stance that lies behind postmodern theory. If we focus on the founders of the movement, we realize how the modern/postmodern divide constitutes, in some way, an artificial dichotomy. Beyond the descriptive aspects of the social changes involved in postmodernism, we envisage the native intent that drives postmodern authors. The analysis of these roots gives us a relevant insight into the postmodern idea itself. The novelty can indeed be found in a reflexive posture which characterizes postmodernism in its inner connection with modernity. We therefore develop the hermeneutics of change that postmodern thinkers put in practice when it concerns the re-reading and re-writing of some modern claims. Postmodern thinkers open interstices within modernity, creating a fundamental space wherein to revitalize modernity and foster imagination toward new socio-historical configurations.

Capital & Class, 1991

The claims currently being made on behalf of post modernism are nothing if not diverse-everything from architecture through formal theoretical developments to the organisation of the economy is now said to be post-modernist. Strange perhaps, then, that outside of the aesthetic sphere we heard so little, relatively speaking, about modernism. Still the very diversity of the arguments in its favour suggest that 'postmodernism' denotes something more than a passing fancy. Reactions on the Left to the phenomenon have varied from the openly hostile, dismissing the case as no more consequential than the cultural coke of metropolitan intellectuals, to the enthusiastic embrace, identifying postmodern identities as the bearers of a new decentralised and potentially democratic 'New Times'. What is involved in these contrary assessments and what, precisely, is the condition of postmodernity or the postmodern condition? At one level, 'postmodernism' is a term of cultural analysis, referring to changes in the forms of production, media of distribution and modes of consumption of artistic creation.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2009

There is an episode of The Simpsons in which the barman, Moe Szyslak, tries to transform his dingy bar into somewhere 'cool' and futuristic, decorating it with randomly chosen objects such as suspended rabbits and eyeballs. His regulars don't get it. Faced with their non-comprehending stares, Moe explains: 'It's po-mo!. .. Post-modern!. .. Yeah, all right-weird for the sake of weird' ('Homer the Moe' , Simpsons Archive). The Simpsons is widely considered one of the most exemplary postmodern texts because of its self-reflexive irony and intertextuality. But postmodernism is not weird for the sake of being weird. Nor is it simply 'the contemporary' or 'the experimental'. It may be 'avant-garde' (though many critics, myself included, think it isn't), or it may be a continuation of the values and techniques of modernism (but then again it may just as plausibly be a break with modernism). It may be an empty practice of recycling previous artistic styles. .. or a valid form of political critique. Postmodernism is a notoriously slippery and indefinable term. It was originally coined in the 1940s to identify a reaction against the Modern movement in architecture. However, it first began to be widely used in the 1960s by American cultural critics and commentators such as Susan Sontag and Leslie Fiedler who sought to describe a 'new sensibility' in literature which either rejected modernist attitudes and techniques or adapted or extended them. In the following decades the term began to figure in academic disciplines besides literary criticism and architecture-such as social theory, cultural and media studies, visual arts, philosophy, and history. Such wide-ranging usage meant that the term became overloaded with meaning, chiefly because it was being used to describe characteristics of the social and political landscape as well as a whole range of different examples of cultural production. This begs the question: why has an obviously problematic term continued to be used? I think the reason is that there has been a genuine feeling amongst theorists, cultural commentators, artists and writers that our age, has, since the 1950s and 1960s onward (opinions vary as to when exactly), been shaped by significant alterations in society as a result of technology, economics and the 1

Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2006

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 1998

[PDF available upon request.] This article comments on Stanford Lyman's book "Postmodernism and a Sociology of the Absurd," with reference to two anecdotal situations which will place the contrasts between absurdist sociology and a postmodernist sociology in perspective. These anecdotes are concerned chiefly with the ways and means by which individuals in contemporary society attempt to splice together a perceived reality of personal and collective "accounts," to borrow Lyman's term, of identity through a process of uniting variously skewed or marginalized social, spiritual, and intellectual orientations. For it is the very attempt to locate some meaningful identity, solid or fluid, which seems to sit at the heart of the distinction which Lyman is making between an absurdist and a postmodernist sociology. The first anecdote pertains to the recent murder of a middle-aged man, allegedly, by two adolescents in Central Park, New York. The part of the story relevant to the discussion of absurdist versus postmodernist sociology is not the grisly murder itself, but rather the millieux of constructed role-identifications taken up by relatively wealthy teens in private school of Manhattan, New York which apparently created the social psychological space within which this murder could take place.

Revue Française de Sociologie, 1996

Theory, Culture & Society, 1993

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2019