阿皮格纳内西: 后现代主义解说 /APPIGNANESI: Introducing Postmodernism

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- 阿皮格纳内西: 后现代主义解说
  APPIGNANESI: Introducing Postmodernism
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阿皮格纳内西: 后现代主义解说 / APPIGNANESI: Introducing Postmodernism
[ 读物介绍 ]
Introducing Postmodernism“Brilliantly wide-ranging”SUNDAY TIMES“A perfect match of form and content”TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENTWhat on earth is postmodernism? Here, atlast, is the perfect audio guide to themaddeningly enigmatic concept that hasbeen used to describe our cultural conditionin the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Postmodernism claims that ‘modernity’,which grew from the Enlightenment of the18th century through the IndustrialRevolution and on to Marxism, hascollapsed, its great project of humanliberation suffocated under its owncontradictions. For some, this is a goodthing, a liberation from a repressive andauthoritarian culture; for others, it is anabdication of responsibility that shows howfar we have declined.In 1979, the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard famously described thepostmodern condition as a crisis in authority.For him, the so-called ‘grand narratives’ or‘meta-narratives’ of modernity, such asMarxism and liberal humanism, had beendiscarded as overly dictatorial. ‘I definepostmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives’,said Lyotard. And we can see thisincredulity as a profound scepticism, not justin the rarefied world of academic thinking,but in our everyday lives as well. Respectfor and trust in authority – politicians,corporations, royalty, the church – is at anall-time low, in the West at least. Are wereally in the throes of ‘credicide’ – the deathof belief?With modernity undermined bypostmodern ideas, we now live in anendlessly ‘contemporary’ culture, a virtualworld of ‘hyperreality’ containing suchstrange phenomena as post-Holocaustamnesia, Disneyland, cyberspace and themuch-vaunted ‘end of history’. But evenwith the fall of Communism and theapparent triumph of liberal democracy,history has refused to end, and we nowinhabit a globalised world of internationalterrorism and environmental breakdown.Will ‘reality’ force postmodern ideas toadapt, or does postmodern theory alreadyallow for this ‘brave new world’?Does ‘postmodern’ accurately sum upthe way we live now? Or is it just afashionable term that leaves usunenlightened about our true historicalcondition? Postmodernism identifies itself bysomething it isn’t. It isn’t modern any more.But how is it post, exactly?Is it the result of modernism?Is it the aftermath of modernism?Is it the afterbirth of modernism?Is it the development of modernism?Is it the denial of modernism?Is it the rejection of modernism?‘Postmodern’ has been used with some or allof these meanings. And the weird logic ofbecoming postmodern is suggested by theLatin origin of ‘modern’, modo, meaning‘just now’. Postmodern therefore literallymeans ‘after just now’. But if we try to pindown exactly what postmodern ideas are allabout, we enter a hall of mirrors, a snarledcat’s-cradle of dissenting views, which is onereason why a rational consensus onpostmodernism is impossible.Perhaps it is easier here to say whatpostmodernism is not. It is not antimodernism,that call for an end toexperimentation in art and architecture soloudly paraded in the popular media and bypeople like Prince Charles. So it is notpopulist conservatism. Nor is it merely aneclectic, mix-and-match approach in whichkitsch and retro combine and ‘anythinggoes’, while the old aesthetic criteria areditched and money becomes the onlyyardstick. This is simply junk postmodernism.If there is a ‘real’ postmodernism, itneeds to be identified in all of the manyfields of culture in turn, and this is exactlywhat Richard Appignanesi does here. Asauthor of the bestselling book IntroducingPostmodernism, he takes the listeneron a roller-coaster ride through the keyareas of postmodern debate in art,philosophy, architecture, literature, science,anthropology, sociology, and much elsebesides. Along the way, he explains theessentials of structuralism, semiotics anddeconstruction as developed by Foucault,Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, Lyotardand others. This is a crucial guide for anyonewanting to understand the kaleidoscopeof competing perspectives that ispostmodernism.