Sequel to History offers a comprehensive definition of postmodernism as a reformation of time. Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth uses a diversified theoretical approachdrawing on post-structuralism, feminism, new historicism, and twentieth-century scienceto demonstrate the crisis of our dominant idea of history and its dissolution in the rhythmic time of postmodernism. She enlarges this definition in discussions of several crises of cultural identity: the crisis of the object, the crisis of the subject, and the crisis of the sign. Finally, she explores the relation between language and time in post-modernism, proposing an arresting theory of her own about the rhythmic nature of postmodern temporality. Because the postmodern construction of time appears so clearly in narrative writing, each part of this work is punctuated by a "rhythm section" on a postmodern narrative (Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy, Cortezar's Hopscotch, and Nabokov's Ada); these extended readings provide concrete illustrations of Ermarth's theoretical positions. As in her critically acclaimed Realism and Consensus in the English Novel, Ermarth ranges across disciplines from anthropology and the visual arts to philosophy and history. For its interdisciplinary character and its lucid definition of postmodernism, Sequel to History will appeal to all those interested in the humanities.
Although great emphasis and focus is placed upon the authority of the elite actors to decide what we count as valid knowledge and assumptions within society, poststructuralism asserts that the way in which this power is achieved is through the manipulation of discourse. Discourses facilitate the process by which certain information comes to be accepted as unquestionable truth. Discourses which augment the power of elites are called dominant or official discourses by poststructuralists. The strength of dominant discourses lies in their ability to shut out other options or opinions to the extent that thinking outside the realms set by the discourse is seen as irrational.
post structuralism and postmodernism pdf download
Madan Sarup has now revised his accessible and popular introduction to post-structuralist and postmodern theory. A new introductory section discusses the meaning of such concepts as modernity, postmodernity, modernization, modernism, and postmodernism. A section on feminist criticism of Lacan and Foucault has been added, together with a new chapter on French feminist theory focusing on the work of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva.The chapter on postmodernism has been significantly expanded to include a discussion of Lyotard's language games and his use of the category "sublime." This chapter ends with a discussion of the relationship between feminism and postmodernism. A further chapter has been added on the work of Jean Baudrillard, a cult figure on the current postmodernist scene, whose ideas have attained a wide currency. The chapter includes a new section on postmodern cultural practices as revealed in architecture, TV, video, and film. Suggestions for further reading are now listed at the end of each chapter and are upgraded and annotated.In tracing the impact of post-structuralist thought not only on literary criticism but on such disciplines as philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, the social sciences, and art, this book will be essential reading for those who want a clear and incisive introduction to the theories that continue to have widespread influence.
The contribution describes the differences between modernism and postmodernism as historical periods of the twentieth century and establishes comparable differences between structuralism and post-structuralism as semiotic approaches. Like modernism, structuralism rejects traditional modes of thought, attempts to reconstruct academic disciplines on the basis of a few fundamental principles and strives to work with reconstructed terminologies and axioms. Like post-modernism, post-structuralism is characterized by the necessity of finding ways to continue research based on the fragmentary results left by structuralist projects. In the beginning of the twentieth century, structuralism itself had responded to materialism, atomism, historicism, and naturalism by introducing its own methodology built around the dichotomies of signified and signifier, paradigm and syntagm, synchrony and diachrony, langue and parole. Rather than rejecting this apparatus, post-structuralism explicated the paradoxes behind these dichotomies and tried to overcome them by under-mining the first concept of each pair. This change of perspective foregrounded the material, processual, and intertextual character of signs as well as the sense-producing function of interpretation. Rejecting rigidly fixed methods as well as general theories, and waiving the distinction between object-signs and meta-signs in favor of their joint reflection, post-structuralist semiotics became an alternative to conventional practices of academic sign analysis and now approaches the status of an art.
Dr. Shahidul Hoque is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Aligarh Muslim University. He has joined the department in August, 2017. His research interests are in contemporary western philosophy and submitted his doctoral thesis on Michel Foucault and the Marginalization of the Subject. Apart from this, his areas of interest also include existentialism, phenomenology, structuralism, post-structuralism, postmodernism, gender studies, and political philosophy. He graduated with an honours in Philosophy from Gauhati University, Assam, then went to A.M.U and, submitted his M.A Dissertation on 'Intersubjectivity in Sartre'. Dr. Hoque was an ICPR Junior Research Fellow in 2015 and also awarded Maulana Azad National Fellowship by University Grant Commission in April, 2016. Recently he published an edited book titled "Reassessing Gandhian Thought" with Dr. Aamir Riyaz, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, AMU in December 2020.
Cultural studies has fascinated academics and students around the globe with its deft application of complex theories to everyday life. A discipline between disciplines, it makes the academic popular and the popular, academic. Cultural studies are concerned with the social and cultural construction of meanings and investigate how power relations govern these meanings. This lucid introduction explains the theory and practice of cultural studies with the help of detailed cultural analysis. The features of culture studies are structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, postmodernism, feminism, queer theory and post-colonial theory. 2ff7e9595c
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