xx

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Preface to t he second ed it ion

Despite this ennui, upon re-reading the 'Conclusion' to the firstedition, although the optimism of the early Blair years in the U Know feels very distant ) I was struck by the ways in which some ofthe cultural trends and characteristics ident ified therein have becomemore dominant and in some quarters fairly established. Consequently,I left it unaltered to stand as something of an historical document. It ismy hope that this second ed ition of Beginning Postmoderninn, with itsadditional sections and upda tings, will continue to provide interestedpanics with a solid and thorou gh guide to the areas in which post­modernism was such a major force, and to indicate the new directionsand trajectories that are beginning to open up across the humanitiesand social sciences as the tide of postrnodernism gradually ebbs. Sowhilst the book is bound by the series title of 'Beginning' , one mightnevertheless construe the debates in this second edition as occurr ingunder the title 'Ongoing', 'Continuing' . .

1

Int roduct ion: t he namingof parts

What is/a re /w as/w e re postmodernism(s)?

From the modernism you choose you get the postmodernism youdeserve. (David Antill, 'Modernism and Postmodernism', Bmmt/ary

2: I (1972»

Wha t connects th e D uchess of York, Batman, the new .M.l6 Build­ing, Bill Clinto n and Blur ?Well, they arc all apparently postmodern.1'01' among the ta lly of- isms', the new password is 'postrn odernism',To adapt Wordsworth, we may say that the postmodern is too muchwith us; late and soon, gett ing and spend ing, we lay waste our livesbefore it . Books prol iferate on the subject; newspaper journalistswrite articles on the phenomenon; it is band ied about on radio; fewself-respecting English departments ignore it; in a recent magazinemultiple-c hoice questionnaire to measure one's 'bipness' , one ofthe questions asked which of the following peop le is regarded as thefounder of the term: (1) F.R. Leavis, (2) FredricJameson , (3) PrinceCharles, (4) Jean Baudril lard, (5) Charles Jencks. lam pleased to sa)'that J chose the correc t response (Charles Jencks, accordi ng to themagazine), although I shall not disclose what my overall 'hip' ratingwas. T he term gets everywhere, but no one can quite explain whatit is. In th e midst of all this terminological mayhem , Harry Enfie ldrecently mu sed as to whether there is a F irst Class Postmodcrnismand a Second Class Postmodern ism, and whether it is all deliveredby Posu modernisr-lman Pat .

2 Beginning postmoderni sm Introduct ion 3

But even if there is a postman involved, docs he deliver any­thing at all? Docs postmoder nism amount to much and , i f so, whatimpor tance has it for our lives? Is it a concept or a practice; a matterof local style, or a whole new period or economic phase?What are itsforms, effects and place? How are we to recognise its advent?Arc wetr uly beyond the modern , truly in (say) u postind ustrial age?

This spectre - the spectre of postmoderni sm - haunts oursociety at every turn. As D ick Hcbdigc's exaggerated and excessiveparodic list of definitions of postmode rnisrn in Hiding in theLight makes clear, postmodernism is ubiqui tous and yet highlycontradictory:

Ir becomes more and more difficult as the 1980s wear on to specifyexactly what it is that ' posnnodem ism' is supposed to refer to asthe rcrm gets stretched in all direct ions across different debates,different disciplinary and discursive boundaries, as different factionsseek to make it their own, using it to designate a plethora of incom­mensurable objects, tendencies, emergencies. When it becomespossible for people LOdescribe as ' postmodern' the decor of a room,the design of a building, the diagesis [nar rative] of a film, the con­struction of a record, or a 'scratch' video, a television commercia l,or an art s documentary, or the 'mrcrrcxrual' relations between them,the layout of a page in a fashion magazine or critical journal, an anti­teleological [possessing no overall design or universal planJ tendencywithin epistemology [the science of knowledge], the attack on the'metaphysics of presence' [;1 self-certifying or absolute structure orfoundation which lies beyond the operation of language], a generalattenuation of feeling, the collective chagrin and morbid projectionsof a post-War generation of baby boomers confronting disillusionedmidd le age, the ' predicament' of reflexivity, a group of rhetoricaltropes, a proliferation of surfaces, a new phase in commodity fetish­ism, a fascination for images, codes and styles, a process of cultural,political or existent ial fragmentation and/or crisis, the 'de-centring'of the subject, an ' incredulity towards metanarrati ves' , the replace­ment of unitary power axes by a plurality of power/d iscourseformations, the ' implosion of meaning', the collapse of cultura lhierarchies, the dread engendered by the threat of nuclear self­dest ruction, the decline of the university, the functioning and effectsof the new miniaruriscd technologies, broad societal and economicshifts into a 'media" 'consumer' or 'multinational' phase, a sense(depending on who you read) of ' placelessness' or the abandonment

of placelessness (tcrirical regionalism') or (even) a generalised sub­stitution of spatial for temporal co-ord inates - when it becomespossible to describe all these things as ' postmodern' (or moresimply,using a curre nt abbreviation, as 'post' or ' very post'), then it'sclear we arc in the presence of a buzzword. (D ick Hcbdi ge, Hidingin the Light: On Images and Things (London, Routledge, 1988),pp. 181- 2)

As a cur rent ' buzzword ' , postmod ernism incr easingly appearsin vir tua lly every sp he re of our cult u re and medi a. T he re are

academ ic journals dedi cated to the subject, s uch as Sub-Stance,Diacritics, Enclitic and th e on-line Postmodern Culture (Wo rld W ide

Web address < http:/ / muse.jhu.edu/ journa ls/ posrmodern culture>and Ctheory (World Wide Web address < http://www. etheory.com/»); referen ces abo und to it in a knowin g and so metimes iron icway in films, m agazines and newspapers and on th e television ; and

alt ho ug h it is t reated with d isda in ful scep ticism by many scient iststhe ms elves, it has see ped in to subjects like speculative ph ysics andnon -li near dynamics (often popularly referred to as chaos th eory)(for exa m ple, see lIya Pri gogin e and Isabelle S rengers , Order Outof Chaos (Lond on , H einemann, 1984), or N. Katherine Hayles'book , Chaos and Order: Complex Dy namics in Litenuure and Science(Chicago, U niversity nf Chicago Press, 1991»). Although the termtakes on very spec ific cult ural sign ificat ions with in particul ar di s­

courses, in its wide r popular recep tion it ap pea rs to be a rath ervague, nebu lous, portmanteau word for eve ry th ing th at is moremo dern than mod ern . Books, articles and discussion s have p ro lifer­

ate d at an exce ptiona l rate, as peop le have soug h t to iden tify andlocate th e term in relation to th eir spec ific fields of inter est. T heor igins o f postmod emism appear to be com pletely confuse d and

underdetermined ; and perhaps ap pro p riately so, since postmod ern­ism den ies th e idea of kn owable orig ins. Postrnodernism has acq uire da sem an tic instab ility or a shifti ng mea ning that shadows an d ec ho esits notes of indeterminacy and in security. T he esta blish me nt o f it s

relat ivist ic cult ura l po lit ics as a new or thodoxy, coup led with thecom plexity of gras ping all the philosophical d iscou rses and termi­nology, m ean s it has th e potential for d isc urs ive am biguity andmetaphoric ap prop riatio n (for exam ple, bein g used in ano the r disci­

pline wit h com plete ly di fferent associat ion s and re fere nce points).

4 Beginn ing post moderni sm

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Introd ucti on 5

STOP and THINK

Where did you f irst come across t he term 'postmode rn ism'?What was being described, and w hat did you understa nd aboutthe word f rom the context of the description?

• Was t he wo rd associated wi th any particular person orsubject?

• Was it used posit ively or negatively?• Is it a wo rd used in casual conversation by you or your

friends?• Is it used in the lectures or seminars you attend?• Have you come across any of t he ways in which Dick

Hebdige describes its use? Are t here concepts, phrases orwords used by Hebd ige w hich you have not come acrossbefore, or which appear to have a special usage?

As a quick exercise, t ry t o match th e f oll ow ing nine termsw it h th e nine defi niti ons.

Terms(a) incomm ensurable, (b) anti -teleologi cal, (c) metanarrat ive,(d) intert extu al, (e) ref lexivity, (f) metaphysics of presence,(g) decentring of th e subject , (h) a plur ality of power/di scoursef ormati ons, (i) impl osion of meaning.

Definitions1. Possessing no overa ll design or luniversal plan; resista nt t o

t otalisati on or universalisati on . \Oi-2. The existence of a variety of st ruct ures of language

generated by specific conf igurat ions of pow er, all seekingprecedence and t he impositi on of particular rules and

hierarchies. '"3. The way in wh ich lingui stic structures or discourses main­

ta in a radical difference f rom one anot her. ~4. An overarching explanation of a state of affa irs, li ke t hose

offered, for example, by Marxism, t he Enlig hten ment orChristianity. C

S. A self-cert ify ing or absolute structure or fo undation w hichlies beyond the operation of language. ~

6. The collapse of signification as a set of d iscernib le anddiscrete units of meaning. ~I

7. An identit y, consciousness or ego which is deferred, dis­placed, fragmented or marginalised within a structure..3

8. The relationship texts have w ith other texts or discourses,whether on a conscious or unconscious level. d

9. Self-conscious incorporation of the processes of production,construction or composition. Q..

These terms are difficult to use at an early stage. However, itwould be usef ul for you to fami liarise yourself with them, sinceth ey are signif icant within t he debate about postmodernism,and wi ll recur throughout this boo k. (Answers are supp lied atthe end of the chapter.)

De bates have raged with intensity in some of these fields forseveral years now, most pro minently in architect ure, visual ar t,literature and cultural theory, while in some areas the term is onlyjust beginning to gain cur rency, as in various social sciences andlaw. As a result, Individual subject areas have thrown up varyingbodies of work on postmodcrnism and a particular subject, and verylittle effort has been made to compare (a) the different or compara­ble uses of the term in differin g disciplin es, and (b) the nature of itsimpact on di fferent areas of knowledge, its specialised ter minology,or its inter relationship with d ifferent subjects. T his book seeks to

fulfil these aims, establishing in one volume a guide to the variousfields in which postmodern ism is emergi ng as a cultura l concept,with chapters embracing significant figures, terminologies, deve lop­ments, works and events in the (histor y' of this notio n. T he bookaims to conside r the important debates, to introduce the work ofsignificant figure s, to acq uaint the reader with the significant textsor cultural works, and to invest igate important areas of contempo­1':11")' cultural production, as well as providing a usefu l ann otatedhihliography for new stude nts. The book is not intended to bepolemical, and it is designed for the reader who wishes to probe the' mystique' that surro unds the concept and lise of postm oderni sm .

T he growth of postmodernism has been, in the words of one ofI he majo r theor ists of architecture, Charles Jen cks, (3 sinuous, even

tortuous, path . Twist ing to the left and then to the r ight, br anch ingdown the midd le, it resembles the nat ural form of a spread ing root,or a meander ing river that divides, changes course, doubles backon itself and takes off in a new di rection ' (j encks, What is Post­Modernism?(Lon don,Academy Editions, 1986), p. 2). G illes Deleuzeand Felix G uatta r i, ( WO gurus of conte mporary social analysis, havedescribed postmodern ism using th e metaphor of the 'rhizome',T his is the lateral foot structure of cer tain plan ts, and the metaph ordescribes how all social and cultural act ivities in postmoderni sm aredispersed, divergent and acentred systems or st ructures. T his con­tras ts with th e organised, hierarchical, ' trunk-and- branc h' structureof modern ism . Ot hers talk about the 'doubleness' of postm oder n­ism, meaning its ironi c, self- reflexive or parod ic, imitative act ion . Inall definitions, postrnodernism has proved to be a snake-like conce ptwhose twists and coils arc difficult to pin down . From the inceptionof the term in Arnold Toynbee's A S tudy ofHistory (written in 1934,and pub lished in 1947), the term has acc umulated contradictorymeanings.

How then is one to understand the term 'postm odern '? O ne caneasily have the feeling of drowning when dealing with the term andits manifestations. The prefix ' post' sugges ts that any postmodcrn ­ism is inextricably bound up with modernism, either as a replacem entof modernism or as chronologically after modern ism . Indeed , withpostmodcrnism, po.~l fem i n ism, postcolonialism and postindustria­lism, the ' post' can be seen to suggest a critical engagement withmodernism , rather than claiming the end of modern ism , or it canseem that modern ism has been over turned, superseded or repl aced .T he relationship is some thing more akin to a continuous engage­ment, which imp lies that postmodern ism needs modernism to

survive, so that th ey exist in something more like a host-parasiterelat ionship. T herefore, it is qui te crucial to realise th at any de fini­tion of poumodernism will depend upon one's prior defin ition ofmodernism. Modern ism was generally the name given to the eart h­quake in Euro pean culture in the first half of the twentieth century,which underm ined many aesthet ic tenets and princip les througho utthe arts. Its geog raphical force was broad - affecting Berlin, Paris,Vienna, Rome, Lo ndo n, New York and Zur ich - and the cultu ralforce was deep - affecting all areas, like architectu re, music, visual

art, ph ilosophy and literatu re. From abo ut 1910 un til about thebeginning of the Seco nd World "Val', art ists as diverse as TS. Eliot ,James Joyce, Virginia "Voolf, Ezr a Poun d, Marcel Prou st, Ste phenMa llarm e, Benoit Brecht, Franz Kafk a and Tristan Tz ara in litera­rure, Arno ld Sc hoenberg, Anto n Weber, Igor Stravinsky, CharlesIves and Ben jamin Britte n in music, Ma rcel D uchamp, PabloPicasso and \oVassily Kand insky in ar t, and movem ents like F utur­ism, Da daism, Surrea lism, C ubism, Constructivism and Imagismushered in exper imental and innovative modes of representation .\Ve might catalogue some of the character ist ics of modern ism asfollows:

7Intro duction

I. A commitment to finding new forms to explore homwe sec theworld rath er than mluu we see in it (e.g. the break with realistmodes of narrative in favour of a stream of consciousness; invisual art, the eme rgence of Cubism, which represents objectsas a series of discont inuous, fract ured planes, all equidistantfrom the viewer, rather than using light and perspective to

sugges t picto r ial depth cont aining solid, three-d ime nsionalobjects; in music, the abando nment of harm ony in favour oftone).

2. A new faith in quasi-scientific modes of conce ptualisation andorganisation, for instance using basic geometr ic shapes likecubes and cylinders in the tower blocks of modern ist archi tec­ture, as the express ion of a rationalist, progressive soc iety.

3. An ideologically inspired use of fragmented form s, like collagest ruct ures in ar t, and deliberately discontinuous nar ratives inliterature to suggest the fragm entation and break-up of for­merly accepted systems of thou ght and belief

4. Aesthetic self- reflexivity, in which artefacts explore their ownconstitution, construct ion and shape (e.g. novels in which nar­rator s comment on nar rative forms, or paintings in which animage is left un finished , with ' ro ughed- in' or blank sections onthe canvas).

5. A clear demarcation bet ween popul ar and elite forms of cultu re(e.g. inte llectual d isti nct ions made between atona l electro nicmusic like K arlheinz S tockhausen's and modern jazz, or bet­ween modern jazz and rock, or between rock and 'pop', etc.).

Begin ning postmodern ism6

8 Beginn ing postmodernism Int roduct ion 9

6. A gradual growth of interest in non -western forms of culture,albeit as a way to reinvigorate tired traditional aesth etics (e.g.the interest that avant -garde photographers at the turn of thecentury took in Japanese prints; or the widespr ead interestof art ists such as Picasso and Ge orges Braque in 'primitive'African masks).

T his outline of mod erni sm is necessarily pain ted with broadbrushstro kes. 10 what extent does postrnoderni sm emerge out ofthis, or react to it? At first glance, the 'post' suggests a cultural era'after' moderni sm, indicating some form of linear periodi sation ,tho ugh this quickly becomes highly problemati c, since the concep­tual appears then to be contlated with the historical. In manyrespects, postmoderni sm dovetails with many of these tend encies,often practising exa ctly the same aesthetic characteristics. So the rela­tionship between the two is clearly more complex than a simple lin­ear model of histori cal development - first modernism, thenpostmodernism ~ would suggest. T heorists like jurgen Habermasand Alex Callinicos argue that postmoderni sm is no different frommod erni sm in certain forma l respects, and that the definit ion of adifferent cultural practice rests upon a neo-conservatism whichseeks to negate the critical edge of moderni st aesth etics as a forma­list cul-de-sac. Des pite the prefix 'post' suggesting that post­mode rn ism emerges after mod erni sm, as a chronologically laterperiod in social and cultural history, there are many theorists whoargu e tha t postmod erni sm is not a chronological period, but more ofa way of thinking and doing. Zygmunt Baum an, one of the foremostsocial theorists, regards postmodernity as 'modernity conscious ofits true nature' (Intimations 0/ Postmoderni iy (London, Routledge,1991), p. 187): in other words, it is a social and intellectual self­reflexive mood within modernity. In a moment of parodic insight ,Todd Gitlin acutely lampoons the relationship by stating that'Moder nism tor e up unity and postrnodernism has been enjoyingthe shreds' (Gi tlin , 'Postmoder nism: Roots and Politics', in Ian Angusand Sut Jhally (eds), Cultural Politics in Contemporary America

(Lo ndon, Routledge, 1989), pp. 347-60; p. 351). Postmodernism isa knowing modernism, a self-reflexive modernism, a modernism thatdoes not agonise about itself. Postmodernism does what modernismdoes, only in a celebratory rather than repentant way. T hus, instead

of lamenting the loss of the past, the fragmentat ion of existenceand the collapse of selfhood, postmoderni sm embraces these char­acteristics as a new form of social existence and behaviour. Thedifference between modernism and postmoderni sm is thereforebest seen as a difference in mood or att itude, rather than a chrono­logical difference, or a different set of aesthet ic practices.

One issue which is at the centre of this debate between post­modernism and mod erni sm is the extent to which the legacy ofEnlightenment values is still a valuable source for social and culturalanalysis. Whereas philosoph ers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau,Immanuel K ant and G.w.F. Hege l at the beginning of the Enlight­enment placed a great deal of faith in a hum an 's ability to reason asa means of ensuring and preserving humanity's freedom, manytwentieth-century philosopher s ~ especially those living throughand after the H olocaust - have come to feel that such faith in reasonis misplaced, since the exercise of human reason and logic canjust as probably lead to an Auschwitz or Belsen as it can to liberty,equality and fraternity. S uch qu estioning suspicion of the Enli ght­enment is principally associated with the work of j ean-FrancoisLyotard, for whom postmodernism is an attack on reason .As SabinaLovibond puts it:

The Enlightenment pictured the hum an race as engaged in an efforttowards universal moral and intellectual self-realisation, and so asthe subject of a un iversal historical experience; it also postul ateda universal human reason in terms of which social and political ten­dencies could be assessed as 'progressive' or otherwise (the goalof politics being defined as the realisation of reason in practice).Postmodcrnism rejects this picture: that is to say, it rejects thedoctr ine of the unit y of reason. It refuses to conceive of humanityas a unitary subject striving towards the goal of perfect coherence(in its common stock of beliefs) or of perfect cohesion and stability(in its polit ical practice). (Feminism and Postm odemi sm' , Nem LeftReviem, 178 (1989): 6)

Postmodernism pits reasons in the plural - fragmented and incom­mens urable - against the univers ality of modernism and the lon g­standing conception of the human self as a subject with a single,unified reason . T he subject is the space demarcated by the' I', under stood as a sense of ident ity, a selfhood which is coherent,stable, rational and unified. Based upon this sense of indi viduality

III Beginn ing postmodern ism Introdu ct ion 11

r'unhvidu us' is the La tin word for ' undivided'), it is believed thatI" uplc possess agency and can use their capacities co alter, shapeuu l chan ge the world in which th ey live. Postmodcrn theo ry isII picious of the notion of humans possessi ng an undivided and

ruln-rcm self wh~ acts as the standard of rationality, and guara n­III 1111klwwlcdgeeIamls irrespective of tim e and place. It no longerIwllt,\ cs that reaso ning subjects act as vehicles for histori cally

III UKfcssive chan ge.

II is perhaps useful to distinguish bet ween postmodernity and/J lilf"wdcruism. T he first is a concept which describes O Uf socio­economic, politica l and cultural condition. For example, in the West\\C.' live in increasing ly postind ustrial, 'service-oriented ' economies,\, hilc our dea lings with mundane tasks like, for instance, shopping,nrc ever more media ted through the compute r interface, as we com­muni cate with each oth er by e-mail, voice-mail, fax, tele-co nferenceon vidcolink, access ing the wider world via the net, and choos inglor entertainment the high-speed image bom bardment of the popvideo or the tongue- in-chic thr iller anti-n arratives of The X Files.Such conditions of living are often refer red to as 'postm odern ity'.Pnsllllodemis1Il on the other hand describes th e broad aestheticilnd mtellectual projects in our society, on the plane of theor y. T hu s,for instance, people refer to minimalist art which combats notionsof art as ego-ce ntred self-expressions of th e ' inner self ', or to liter­ary works which take pleasure in 'playing' with language for its ownsake rather than with a moralistic or realist ic purp ose. O r they refer10 posrstructuralisr philosop hy's claim that ideas which maintai nthat there are centres of tr uth which escape or stand outside thelogic of language are merely convenient or ideo logically motivatedillusions - all these might be referred to as postmodernism.

Nonetheless, despi te this att empt at a simplified explication,I here is a variety of competing definitions of posrrnodcrnism . It is aICI' 111 used rou ghly since the 1960s abou t cultural forms that displayccrtuin chuructcristics, among which arc:

II I(' undcrcuu ing of an all-encompass ing rationality;li n incredulit y towards metanarratives and a challenge to total­l Iollll j; drsccnrscs, which is a suspicion of any discu rsive attemptsIII ofl t.'r ;1 toC lnh:lI or univer salist account of existe nce;II H'j l,·\ 'tiull of modernism .

In all thi s, posrmoderni srn represen ts a decli ne of faith in the key­stones of th e Enlighte nment - belief in the infinite progress ofknowledge, belief in infinite mora l and social advancement , beliefin teleology - and its rigoro us definition of the standards of in telli­gibiliry coherence and legitim acy. Consequently, pos tmodern ismseeks local or provisional, rat her than uni versal and absolute, formsof legitimation . The chapters in this book aim to explain the sign i­ficance of these arg ume nts in relation to various subject areas.

In recent times, many articles have appeared across the disci ­plines which begin by decrying their loss of di rection , a cr isis intheir field, or a disruption in their disciplines or areas of thought.T hey then frequ ently go on to perceive and explain the postmod­ern/deconstruct ioni st ope ning as a signpost pointing the way out ofthe cultu ral and epistemological cul-de-sac, It is also the case thatpostmodemism seems to appeal to societies in which the demise oftheir former economi c, cultural and politica l superiority has led to aresponsiveness to nostalgia and frustration . As a resu lt , there hasbeen an increasingly large influen ce of ph ilosophy and textual inte r­pretation in many disciplines. Beginning Postmodernisrn embracesthe works, ideas and concepts from these disciplin es bot h withinand outside th e humani ties, where th e impact of 'postmodernism'has manifested itself and influenced the discourse of th ese subjects.T hese cover such subjects as literature, film, visual and plast icar t, ' classical' and popular music, cultural th eory, sociology, law,ant hro pology, psych ology, feminism , architecture and geography, aswell as including references to important indi vidual works whichformulate no tions of postmodern ism and put forward sign ificantterm inologies. As such, it collects toge ther in a single text a wholecross-section of inform ation on 'postmodernism'. It is intendedt hat thi s multi-disciplinary approach is part of the book's streng th,since it tries to make Beginning Postmodernism available to a reader­ship which is not simply human ities-o rient ed . It encourages somecross- referencing bet ween discip lines to begin, and hopefu lly La

indicate how different disciplines are using each other's ideas,texts and concepts. At this introd uctory level, it is also hoped th atpeople from one discipline may investigate how th eir disciplin etouches upon, or has contact wit h, other disciplines. In thi s way, itl ~ envisaged that Beginning Poumodernism might also prove to be a

12 Beginning postmodernism Introduction 13

useful ini tial text to spark further rapprochement between diffe rentdisciplines.

T he term 'post mode misrn' is not understood in th e same way inall disciplines, and ind eed, as its impa ct has been variable, its useful ­ness as a descriptive term varies from subject to subject: in fact , th esame words somet imes lead to almost mutually exclusive conceptsin differen t fields of thou ght . T here are also different dates for theemergent postmodemisms in different disciplines - the late 19505for art, the late 19605 for architecture, the early 19805 for culturaltheor y, the late 19805 for many social sciences. T hese distinctionsand differences are made clear, while the comparable conce pts arebro ught togeth er. Begitmi11g Postmodernism tr ies to show how post­modernism has permeated such scientific and aesthetic enterprisesas sources of money, models of government, literary expe rimenta ­tion, comme rcial possibilities, physical movements of the body, andurban developments. Many of these areas of stu dy are concernedwith the way th eir disciplines are affected by language. It shapeseven as it art iculates. An impressive bod y of work exploring howmetaphor s, narrative pattern s, rh etorical structures, syntax andsemant ic fields affect scientific discourse and thought is buildin gup: for example, Donald McCloskey's The Rhetoric of Economics(Br ighton, Whcatshcaf, 1986), Charles Baze rman' s Shaping WrittenKnomledge (Madison , U nivers ity of Wiscon sin P ress, 1988), BrunoLatour's Science ill A ction (M ilton Key nes, O pen Univers ity P ress,1987) and T homas Kuhn's The S tructure oj S cientific Revolutions(C hicago, U nivers ity of Chicago Press, 1970). T his argum ent aboutthe active natu re of the engage me nt of language with 'reality ' hasdeep affinities with the ar ticulations that have emerged from thepostmodern context.

-r I..here are ma ny exponents and many different oints of refer­ence for postmodernism, which has not surprisingly led to a varietyof reactions to the value of postmodern ism as a cultural definition.One of the principal problems which has caused widespreaddisagreement about the value of postm oderni sm results from itsrelationship to th e do minant culture . For however critical th e sub­version, there remains a troubling complicity with th e hegemonicor dominant cult ure which cannot be denied. For example, whena multinationa l company like Ben etton a~is~~lothes by~ng them on a multi ethni c basis, it may appear to be a simple

subversion of the dominance of Caucasians in western adverti sing;biit it carr~ with it a;- attempt to sen more of its clothing bycashing in on a high-p rofile racial issue. In th e light of this 'politicalambidextro usness', to stress only th e radical or th e reactionary sideof postmodern ism is to redu ce the complexity of th e cultural debate.Descr ibing a soc iety which lacks firm belief systems and lon g-termpolitical commitments, which is given over to hedoni sm, playful­ness, ind ividualism and living for the moment, and yet which alsopro motes the marginalised and hid den and pu rports to be anti­essent ialist, ant i-el itist and ant i-hierarchica l, th e pol itical and ethicalimp lications of postm odcrnism are not casy to distin guish . T his isalso one of the princip!!!easons for disag reement abo ut the valueof postmodernis m's 'problemarisation' of history, representation,subjectivity and ideo logy. For although postmodernism makes avir tue of its politicsofthe dem ystification of str uctures like patriar­chy, imperialism and -humanisIn: as we sha llSec, these concernsinterconnect with those of Marxism, feminism and poststructura­list analys is. However, they should not be conflated with one ano ther:Ma rxism and feminism bear theories of politi cal action and agencythat ofte n appear insufficien t or absent in postm oderni sm . Anothervexed and contradictory issue appears in the sexual politics of post­modern ism: for all its noise abou t representing th e hith er to repressedvoices, fro m bop to pop, from funk to punk, it remains dominatedby the masculine in many areas. For example, apart from the notableexception of the Ir aqi architect Za ha Ha did, there is a dea rth ofhigh-profile women arc hitects; and th e spheres of music, politi csand philosophy are still dominated by men. Fi nally, postmoderntheorists have often been cr iticised for confusing the collapse ofcer tain ideologies of th e real and the soc ial with the collapse of realityand society. This clearly goesro the heart of the matter, for it isupon one's conv ictio n about whether this distinction is blurred orconfused that a politics of cult ure stands.

Beginning Postmodcrnism hin ges upon the chapters on the rele­vant discipl ines. In each chapte r, examples from the princip alprimary works, th e secondary critical mate rial and , whe re appropri­ate, critical readings of these works are presented . T he chaptersbranch out from these cent ral figures and works, and ran ge fromrelatively brief discussions of indi vidual minor but influential fig­ures to much lon ger discussion s, which provide broader overviews

14 Beginning postrnod emisrn Introduct ion 15

of the contributions and influences of promin ent ind ividu alsand the explanation of major term s and characteristics in thosefields. The emphasis is always on the relevance of the subject matterof each chapter to the overarching context of postmodern ism .Indeed , since most vers ions of this cultural tendency are againstred ucing thin gs to 'bare essentia ls', it seems symptomatic of post­modern ism's character that there is a lack of short, pithy definition .Postmodernism's obsession with fragment s or fractures is a resis­tance to the tota lising system which seeks to explain everyth ingunder a single ru bric; postmodc rnism thus offers a rationale for aguide with chapters with discrete sections, rather than a clear, tota l­ising essay. Postmodern knowledge is provisiona l and dependentupon the context of inquiry. In this context, Beginning Postmodern­ism can maint ain something of a 'postmode rn' style by providin g avariety of chapters and subsections on various disciplines withoutgiving precedence to any parti cular discip line or definition, while atthe same time exemplifying aesth etic, sociological, ideological andscientific manifestations of the cultural concept.

T here is, thou gh, something of a (terminological lag' in the vari­ous cultural disciplines within postmodern ism . In some cases, thebook concentrates on fields in which the concept of postmoderni smhas only recen tly been adopted as a top ic of inqui ry (as in mu sico­logy, history or some of the social sciences), and where the debates,aut hors and methods remain in a nascent state. He nce, it isnecessary to mainta in some looseness of defin ition in the term'postmodernisrn' to allow for new developments in these emergentdiscour ses and argum ent s. However, the approach to postmod ern ­ism that informs thi s book is not interested in forgin g a unifiedvision of the ' matu re' postmo dem ph enomenon . Rather, it is theint ention to acquaint the reader with as many different concretisa­tions of postm odern discourse as space permits. Mi chel Foucaul t isoften understood to be one of the principal theorists of discourse.' Discourse' is a slippery word, but it is often und erstood as theinsti tutiona lised practice throu gh which signification and valueare impo sed, sanctioned and exchanged . In other words, discoursesarc the variety of different linguistic structures in which we engagein dynamic int erchanges of beliefs, attitudes, sentiment s and othe rexpres sions of consciousness, un der pinned as they are by specific

configurations of historical, social and cultural power. 'Postmodern­ism' is therefore t reated as a 'discurs ive event' emb racing a wholerange of disciplin es, while I recognise that in some fields, agree­ments over the importance of issues, texts and authors are betterdeveloped and more advanced than in others. H ence, chaptersinevitably vary in length accord ing to the cultura l significanceaccorded to ideas of the 'postmodcrn' within a par ticu lar discipline.

Beginning Postmodernism positions the cult ura l concept preciselyas a cultural concept, a notio n that pervades a whole swathe of sub­jects, and not simply as an esoteric word deba ted by ivory- toweracademics; it is a vibrant concept pro voking a wide range of analo­gous albeit not coterminous developm ent s. A volume such as Begin­ning Postmodem ism docs run the risk of establishing a 'ca non' ofpostmodernisms and postm odemisrs, delimiting who is in and whois out. It also runs the risk of becomin g a modernist survey of post­modernist culwrc: the cataloguing appro~ is inimical to postmo­dcm iry's desire for fluidity of boundaries, a free play of informat ionsystems, and a suspicion of any form of redu ctionist tabulation.However, considering the very natu re of the anti-canonicity anddcstabilisation of the strategies of postmodernism, this is most defi­nitely not the book'saim. Selection of the material covered withineach chapter discipline is based on such criteria as typicality, generalconsensus and prominent characteristics, and where a subject iscontentious and debate is central to the material, th is is incorporatedwithin the discussion. Beginning Postmodernism tries to posit ion aconcept with in the specific manifestations of that discourse, be it inliterature , archit ecture, music, politics, law, sociology, geography, orbusiness and management systems. Such definition s can placepeople, works and event s within specific concrete existences, rathe rthan delimiting them as specifically one thing or anoth er, and thusbalancing them within the sum tot al of a wide variety of culturalexplorations, cognitive experiences , historical tensions, scientificstructures or aesthetic form s. The concept of 'postrnodcrnism' canitself exist, so to speak, as a tension within Beginning Postmodemism,between various chapters and subsections, in which no one chapterprovides the definitive explanation of the concept.

Beginning Postmodernism brin gs together in a single volume aselection of the princ ipal figures and terms in the part icularly

- - - - - - --- -- - - ---.:

important literary and cultura l discip lines; yet it also seeks to con­nect these areas with analogous areas and issues from right acrossthe spectrum of knowledge, creating a beginner's guide to a field inwhich competence for a person in one area may overlap with limitedknowledge in another. It is hop ed that that gap is partially redres­sed by this volume, which, thro ugh a series of inflected chapte rsand suggested cross-references, provides a guide to analogous andparallel areas of interest in other disciplines. To that end, a seriesof thematic issues recurs throughout the book:

l. the funct ion of history and the representation of the past incontemporary culture;

2. the nature of the everyday in contemporary existence;3. the political role of aest het ic adornment or ornament;4. the rep resentation of the body and the eme rgence of new

conce pts of the hu man or self;5. the insistence on metaphors of space in contemporary social

experience;6. the ' tcxrualism' of modern knowledge and life.

T he issues listed here recur persisten tly throughout debates aboutpostmodernism , and they form the nuts and bolts of the postr nod­cmist scaffolding. Each chapter concludes with an annotatedSelected Read ing list which indicates fu rt her readin g in all thedisciplines. It is hoped that one of the benefits of this volume willthus be that it can act as an impetus for initiating the expansionof the horizons of what might be accom plished in any one field,opening the way for parallel explorations of cultura l theory in across-disciplinary fashion.

Beginning Posunodernism is primar ily intend ed to function as anint roducto ry guide to students and teachers of cultural theory,modern ism and postmodern ism in various intellectual disciplinesin secondary, furthe r and higher education, whose interests mainlylie in the fields of literary and cultural studies. Although postmod­erni sm manifests a relentless interdisciplina rity, its prop orti onalimpact on various subject areas has been uneven. Consequently, thetext reflects this variability of impact by focusing principally onthe thrust of postmodernism in the fields of literatu re, cultu raltheory, the ' human arts" sociology, and those people interested in

cont inental philosophy (and other art s disciplines), albeit takinginto account and acknowledging some of those areas where explicitinfluence has been less marked.

T he text is conceived of prin cipally as an accessible introductorybook which will provide a central resource for students and teachersalike. The 'Stop and Think' sections are designed to prompt dia­logue, self-interrogat ion and self- reflection about the text and thepositions which are adopted here. Beginning Ponmodernism shouldprovide students and teachers with a book that goes beyond thenumerous books on the market which address the issue of 'post­modern ism' in its various guises. For many of these arc either highlyacademic in their orientation, like Peter Heilharz, Gillian Robinsonand John Rundell (eds), Between Totalitarianism ami Postmodernity(Cambridge MA , MIT Press, 1992); or written with a specificallypolemical argument in mind, like Alex Callinicos' Against Posnnod­ernism (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1989); or, like Ma lcolm Br adb uryand Richard Ruland (eds), From Puritanism to Posnnoderninn (NewYork, Viking, 1991), q uite str ictly focused on specific nationalities,specific disciplines, or specific areas of knowledge (postmodern lit­erature, postmodern law, postmodern art, postmodern architecture;c.g. Steinar Kvale's Psychology ami Postmodernism (London , Sage,1992), Costas Douainas, Ronnie Warrington and Shaun McVeigh'sPostmodcrn J urisprudence (L ond on , Routledge, 1991) or EdmundSmyth's Pountodernism and Contemporary Fiction (L ond on , Bats­ford, 1991)). Beginning Postmodernism aims not to rep lace thesetexts, but to do something qu ite different . It aims to br ing togetherall the principal exponents from differen t disciplines and differen tnat ionalities under one cover. It is hoped that through scrut inisinga variety of disciplines and the way postmoderni sm has had animpac t upon them, through the different accounts of differentposrrnodem isms, readers can gradually build up a picture whichcross- references and interl inks with othe rs, and reinforces theknowledge gained from one discipline. Often the debates fromone discipli ne throw new light on another.The book is also designedto alert readers to the multip licity of postmodern debates, and openup doors thr ough which inte rested readers might be able to passto further inquiry. And the answers to those earlier questions are:(a) 3, (b) I, (c) 4, (d) 8, (e) 9, (f) 5, (g) 7, (h) 2, (i) 6

16 Begin ning postmoderni sm Introduct ion 17