‘Since at least Plato ...’ and Other Postmodernist Myths

‘Since at least Plato ...’ and Other Postmodernist Myths PDF Author: M. Devaney
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230375790
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
'Since at Least Plato...' and Other Postmodernist Myths surveys the fields of theories of postmodernism and criticizes some of the most common claims found in them about philosophy, science, and the relationship and literary techniques to metaphysics, epistemology, and political ideologies. Devaney finds the accounts offered by these theories of concepts ranging from the law of noncontradiction to relativity and the Uncertainty Principle to be as ill-informed as they are pervasive. Devaney shows how the use to which these accounts have been put in constructing the story of the progression from realism to postmodernism to modernism flattens out both the history of ideas and the history of literature.

‘Since at least Plato ...’ and Other Postmodernist Myths

‘Since at least Plato ...’ and Other Postmodernist Myths PDF Author: M. Devaney
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230375790
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Since at Least Plato...' and Other Postmodernist Myths surveys the fields of theories of postmodernism and criticizes some of the most common claims found in them about philosophy, science, and the relationship and literary techniques to metaphysics, epistemology, and political ideologies. Devaney finds the accounts offered by these theories of concepts ranging from the law of noncontradiction to relativity and the Uncertainty Principle to be as ill-informed as they are pervasive. Devaney shows how the use to which these accounts have been put in constructing the story of the progression from realism to postmodernism to modernism flattens out both the history of ideas and the history of literature.

Faulkner and Postmodernism

Faulkner and Postmodernism PDF Author: John N. Duvall
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1604730366
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Since the 1960s, William Faulkner, Mississippi's most famous author, has been recognized as a central figure of international modernism. But might Faulkner's fiction be understood in relation to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow as well as James Joyce's Ulysses? In eleven essays from the 1999 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, held at the University of Mississippi, Faulkner and Postmodernism examines William Faulkner and his fiction in light of postmodern literature, culture, and theory. The volume explores the variety of ways Faulkner's art can be used to measure similarities and differences between modernism and postmodernism. Essays in the collection fall into three categories: those that use Faulkner's novels as a way to mark a period distinction between modernism and postmodernism, those that see postmodern tendencies in Faulkner's fiction, and those that read Faulkner through the lens of postmodern theory's contemporary legacy, the field of cultural studies. In order to make their particular arguments, essays in the collection compare Faulkner to more contemporary novelists such as Ralph Ellison, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, Walker Percy, Richard Ford, Toni Morrison, and Kathy Acker. But not all of the comparisons are to high culture artists, since even Elvis Presley becomes Faulkner's foil in one of the essays. A variety of theoretical perspectives frame the work in this volume, from Fredric Jameson's pessimistic sense of postmodernism's possibilities to Linda Hutcheon's conviction that cultural critique can continue in postmodernism through innovative new forms such as metafiction. Despite the different theoretical premises and distinct conclusions of the individual authors of these essays, Faulkner and Postmodernism proves once again that in the key debates surrounding twentieth-century fiction, Faulkner is a crucial figure. John N. Duvall, an associate professor of English at Purdue University, is the editor of Modern Fiction Studies. Ann J. Abadie is associate director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

Shakespeare and the World of “Slings & Arrows”

Shakespeare and the World of “Slings & Arrows” PDF Author: Gary Kuchar
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228023211
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Slings & Arrows, starring Susan Coyne, Paul Gross, Don McKellar, and Mark McKinney as members of the New Burbage Theatre Festival, was heralded by television critics as one of the best shows ever produced and one of the finest depictions of life in classical theatre. Shakespeare scholars, however, have been ambivalent about the series, at times even hostile. In Shakespeare and the World of “Slings & Arrows” Gary Kuchar situates the three-season series in its cultural and intellectual contexts. More than a roman à clef about Canada’s Stratford Festival, he shows, it is a privileged window onto major debates within Shakespeare studies and a drama that raises vital questions about the role of the arts in society. Kuchar reads the television show – ever fluctuating between faith and doubt in the power of drama – as an allegory of Peter Brook’s widely renowned account of modern theatre, The Empty Space, mirroring Brook’s distinction between holy theatre, a quasi-sacred vocation, and deadly theatre, a momentary entertainment. Combining contextualized interpretations of the series with subtle formalist readings, Kuchar explains how Slings & Arrows participates in a broader recuperation of humanist approaches to Shakespeare in contemporary scholarship. The result is a demonstration of how and why Shakespeare continues to provide not just entertainment, but equipment for living.

The Undermining of Beliefs in the Autonomy and Rationality of Consumers

The Undermining of Beliefs in the Autonomy and Rationality of Consumers PDF Author: John O'Shaughnessy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135978271
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
This book examines modern consumption, focusing on concepts of autonomy and rationality. The authors adopt a moderating perspective, reviewing and critiquing attacks on these concepts in order to work towards a more nuanced view of the consumer.

Interpreting Cultures

Interpreting Cultures PDF Author: J. Hart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113711665X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
This book focuses on how we perceive, know and interpret culture across disciplinary boundaries. The study combines theoretical and critical contexts for close readings in culture through discussions of literature, philosophy, history, psychology and visual arts by and about men and women in Europe, the Americas and beyond.

The Move Beyond Form

The Move Beyond Form PDF Author: M. Hughes
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113732922X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Fictional narratives of the late twentieth century often cross boundaries. This study argues that the undoing of structure in postmodern art form demands a different way of thinking and represents a commentary on the material and social conditions of the late twentieth century and beyond.

Doing Time

Doing Time PDF Author: Rita Felski
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814728170
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Contemporary theory is full of references to the modern and the postmodern. How useful are these terms? What exactly do they mean? And how is our sense of these terms changing under the pressure of feminist analysis? In Doing Time, Rita Felski argues that it makes little sense to think of the modern and postmodern as opposing or antithetical terms. Rather, we need a historical perspective that is attuned to cultural and political differences within the same time as well as the leaky boundaries between different times. Neither the modern nor the postmodern are unified, coherent, or self-evident realities. Drawing on cultural studies and critical theory, Felski examines a range of themes central to debates about postmodern culture, including changing meanings of class, the end of history, the status of art and aesthetics, postmodernism as "the end of sex," and the politics of popular culture. Placing women at the center of analysis, she suggests, has a profound impact on the way we thing about historical periods. As a result, feminist theory is helping to reshape our vision of both the modern and the postmodern.

Idolizing the Idea

Idolizing the Idea PDF Author: Wayne Cristaudo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793602360
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Ever since Plato made the case for the primacy of ideas over names, philosophy has tended to elevate the primacy of its ideas over the more common understanding and insights that are circulated in the names drawn upon by the community. Commencing with a critique of Plato’s original philosophical decision, Cristaudo takes up the argument put forward by Thomas Reid that modern philosophy has generally continued along the ‘way of ideas’ to its own detriment. His argument identifies the major paradigmatic developments in modern philosophy commencing from the new metaphysics pioneered by Descartes up until the analytic tradition and the anti-domination philosophies which now dominate social and political thought. Along the way he argues that the paradigmatic shifts and break-downs that have occurred in modern philosophy are due to being beholden to an inadequate sovereign idea, or small cluster of ideas, which contribute to the occlusion of important philosophical questions. In addition to chapters on Descartes, and the analytic tradition and anti-domination philosophies, his critical history of modern philosophy explores the core ideas of Locke, Berkeley, Malebranche, Locke, Hume, Reid, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger. The common thread uniting these disparate philosophies is what Cristaudo calls ‘ideaism’ (sic.). Rather than expanding our reasoning capacity, ‘ideaism’ contributes to philosophers imposing dictatorial principles or models that ultimately occlude and distort our understanding of our participative role within reality. Drawing upon thinkers such as Pascal, Vico, Hamann, Herder, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber and Eugen Rosensock-Huessy Cristaudo advances his argument by drawing upon the importance of encounter, dialogue, and a more philosophical anthropological and open approach to philosophy.

Centuries’ Ends, Narrative Means

Centuries’ Ends, Narrative Means PDF Author: Interdisciplinary Group for Historical Literary Study
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804726498
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
This pathbreaking work uses the approaching conclusion of the second millennium as a context for discussing questions concerning temporal division and narrative continuity. It investigates assumptions about teleology and eschatology while exploring the ways in which temporal division affects the creation and production of cultural texts and, reciprocally, the ways in which narrative techniques, forms, and conventions shape, explain, and justify history. Through this exploration, the volume examines how temporal thresholds tend simultaneously to reinforce and to disrupt conceptual boundaries. The sixteen essays use the significance typically invested in historical junctures marked by a centenary advance to investigate perceived paradigm shifts and the consequent reactions to these implicit and explicit transitions. By doing so, they also seek to illuminate the relations between narrative and history, and to enhance understanding of our present historical moment.

In Defence of Realism

In Defence of Realism PDF Author: Raymond Tallis
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803294356
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In Defence of Realism is a powerful indictment of the fog of bad philosophy and worse linguistics that has shrouded much contemporary literary theory and criticism. Raymond Tallis, one of the most important critics of post-Saussurean literary theory in the English-speaking world, examines the reasons often cited by critics and theorists for believing that realism in fiction is impossible and verisimilitude a mere literary ?effect.? He clearly demonstrates not only that the arguments of critics hostile to realism are invalid, but that even if they were sound, they would apply equally to anti-realist fiction, indeed to all intelligible discourse.