Beginning to theorize postmodernism
Abstract
Of all the terms bandied about in both current cultural theory and contemporary writing on the arts, postmodernism must be the most overand under-defined. It is usually accompanied by a grand flourish of negativized rhetoric: we hear of discontinuity, disruption, dislocation, decentring, indeterminacy and anti-totalization. What all of these words literally do (by their disavowing prefixes, dis-, de-, in, anti-) is incorporate that which they aim to contest — as does, arguably, the term postmodernism itself. I point to this simple verbal fact in order to begin my 'theorizing' of the cultural enterprise to which we seem to have given such a provocative label. First and foremost, I should like to argue, postmodernism is a contradictory phenomenon that uses and abuses, installs and then subverts, the very concepts it challenges be it in literature, painting, sculpture, film, video, dance, television, music, philosophy, aesthetic theory, psychoanalysis, linguistics or historiography. These are some of the realms from which my 'theorizing' will proceed, and my examples will always be specific, because what I want to avoid are those polemical generalizations (often by those inimical to postmodernism — Jameson 1984a, Eagleton 1985, Newman 1985) diat leave us guessing about just what it is that is being called postmodernist, though they are never in doubt as to its undesirability. Some assume a generally accepted 'tacit definition' (Carmello 1983); others locate the beast by temporal (after 1945? 1968? 1970? 1980?) or economic signposting (late capitalism). But, in as pluralist and fragmented a culture as that of the Western world today,, such designations are not terribly useful if they intend to generalize about all the vagaries of culture. After all, what does television's Dallas have in common with the architecture of Ricardo Bofill? What does John Cage's music share with a play (or film) like Amadeusi In other words, postmodernism cannot simply be used as a synonym for
Cite this
Linda Hutcheon (1987). Beginning to theorize postmodernism. Textual Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502368708582005
@article{linda1987beginning,
title = {Beginning to theorize postmodernism},
author = {Hutcheon, Linda},
year = {1987},
journal = {Textual Practice},
doi = {10.1080/09502368708582005}
}Citations in this library
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