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From the current dialogue between historical critics and postmodernists, it’s fairly clear that:
(1) nobody agrees on the definitions of either historical criticsm or postmodernism, and yet
(2) everybody is positioning themselves more on one side or the other, even if they don’t really buy the caricatures by the other side or even the appellations “historical critical” and “postmodern”.
Funny, eh?
So, in a (possibly futile) attempt to get a more precise fix on what people are holding onto dearly, or fervently objecting to, I’ve noted down a few of the so-called “postmodern” characteristics which are often touted, whether real or imagined.
Please let me know:
1. which of the characteristics are more imagined than real,
2. other characteristics that should be included here, or
3. which characteristics are the more important areas of contention, and why this is so
(and anything else that you really want to say, such as “why are you even bothering?”).
Concerning method:
- Ideological criticisms (feminist, queer, postcolonial, etc) versus historical-contextual criticism
- Partial, non-totalizing interpretations
- Deconstruction (yes, as method!), post-structuralist identification of inherent problems with underlying binaries
- Personal, subjective, or unevidenced responses versus empirical and logically argued criticism
Concerning metaphysical assumptions:
- Anti-realism versus idealism
- Anti-humanist/individualist/subject-centred conceptions; pro socio-cultural, intertextual, decentred self
- Anti-free will; pro determinism
- Anti-valorization of mind (rational, conscious, self-directing); pro-body (passions, desire, unconscious) anti-dualistic
- Anti-metaphysics, ontotheology
Concerning epistemological assumptions:
- Heightened sense of uncertainty, subjectivity, and bias of knowledge (empirical and rational, including scientific)
- Increased recognition and opposition to paradigms, universalization, and metanarratives in knowledge acquisition
- [Investigation of the historial constitution of types of knowledge/discourses, genealogy versus the search for history-in-itself and universal truths and unchallenged teleologies]
- Anti-universal theories of knowledge, theories of everything, totalization, closure
- Relativism, anti-foundationalism; anti-objectivity of truth
- Anti- correspondence theories of truth; pro pragmatic or coherence theories
Concerning hermeneutical assumptions:
- Post-structuralist, emphasising instability of language, differance, deconstruction, inherent contradictions, polyvocality
- Anti-inherent or authorial textual meaning; pro reader response, interpretive communities for establishing meaning
- Anti-naturalizing of categories; pro social construction
- Focus on the final synchronic form rather than the earlier stages and diachonic issues
Concerning ethical assumptions:
- Anti-metaethical justification – pro the event, the singular
- Anti-consensus; pro pluralism, tolerance of difference
- Anti-power, hegemony; pro marginalized, disempowered, excluded voices
Concerning aesthetic assumptions:
- Bricolage, border-crossing, borrowing
Defined in relation to chronology and/or cultural phases:
- Post WWI/Holocaust/1968
- Late capitalism, hyper-commodification
As polemic:
- A fad, buzzword
- Crackpottery (voguish neologism attrib. to Chris Weimer)
The Dunedin School 
Deane, some of these are merely manifestations of liberalism, but you have neglected one crucial factor: history is one of the key questions and is certainly not restricted to ‘historical-contextual’ approaches. Witness Foucault, at least, let alone postcolonial approaches.
So postmodernism is anti-liberal for you? For some, it seems to be a hyperliberalism.
In the list I’m trying to collect what is said about “postmodernism”, rather than what is the case. In fact, given that it’s hard to find a theorist who describes himself as a “postmodernist”, the grouping is decidedly dodgy. But for some reasons, there are a lot of people who say they disagree with “postmodern” ideas. I imagine that these ideas are a mix of some of the ones I listed and others. I was wondering which ones, and what people would say about them. This may catch on.
And you were playing the game. So, would you add something to the list about historial constitution of types of knowledge/discourses versus… what? the search for history-in-itself? and universal truths?
No, many items you list are conveniently liberal and not even hyper-liberal. As for history, I like what Hayden White says about history, which is pretty obvious: it follows narrative forms, easily identifiable. White probably went to far, much to the annoyance of conventional historians, to argue that when historians thought they were reconstructing the past, they weren’t doing anything of the sort. The way I hear it pronounced, though, at least in biblical studies but not among other historians, is that one one side you have the search to uncover the past, based on evidence, and on the other the argument that whatever history is produced is yet another narrative that may be challenged by an alternative history. It’s a false alternative (obviously).
It seems a lot of people went too far with constructionist ideas in the 1970s, and some of them have since retracted their positions (Eco, Fish). Probably just a pendulum swing from the prior dominance of positivism, I guess.
OK – this list of “postmodernism” is just an irresolvable jumble. I give up already.
any post that requires 87 tags is too long and too complex.
But complexity is exactly what is needed. It’s oversimplification which is the problem.
There are a lot of people opposed to “postmodern” ideas, and not a lot of agreement between them as to what those ideas are.
I prefer the line that we are all postmodern …
Latour has a point though: none of us have ever reached modernity.
Or Lyotard: postmodernism precedes modernism.
In that thought, Lyotard precedes Badiou.
… but postdates Adorno & Horkheimer.
Jim,
Indeed, recognising the complexity of all things cultural is everything.
Looking at this, it dawns on me that this may in fact undue everything I’ve said below. Alas.
this is a sizable list but very helpful in canvassing the quibbles. very impressive!
one particular distinction that i’ve found helpful is the one between ‘anti’ and ‘post’. so epistemologically for example, a post-foundationalist accepts that there are foundations upon which disciplines and societies are predicated, but rejects the notion that these foundations are immutable/inexorable/essential prior to politics and consequently, power. Anti-foundationalists like Rorty are more normatively against any semblance of foundations, hence moving closer toward a pragmatic liberal stance. I think the continental philosophers are more likely to fall into the former category (though how they approach it and their conclusions differ radically), while American scholars (Rorty, Fish, Bloom, West) are more likely to be part of the latter.
From this distinction at least five general positions can be staked out in my mind: postmodernity as late-capitalism (e.g. Harvey and Jameson); postmodernity as condition (e.g. Lyotard and Baudrillard); postmodernity as criticism (e.g. Derrida); postmodernity as a style (e.g. architecture of Jencks and Charles Moore); and postmodernity as alter-modernity (e.g. Islamic modernities in Aziz Al-Azmeh and Hamid Dabashi)
I wonder if this distinction is also helpful when considering the other issues and ‘main players’.
all this said, I must say i do sometimes feel like the word is a fad and I would not decry its demise. Then at least we might get on with careful reading and consideration beyond whinging.
‘From this distinction at least five general positions can be staked out in my mind:
a) postmodernity as late-capitalism (e.g. Harvey and Jameson);
b) postmodernity as condition (e.g. Lyotard and Baudrillard);
c) postmodernity as criticism (e.g. Derrida);
d) postmodernity as a style (e.g. architecture of Jencks and Charles Moore);
e) and postmodernity as alter-modernity (e.g. Islamic modernities in Aziz Al-Azmeh and Hamid Dabashi)’.
As I see it, b and e would find much in common, as would a and d. Worthwhile checking out Jameson’s efforts to map all this ‘Theories of the Postmodern’ – there’s anti-modernist, pro-modernist, pro-postmodernist and anti-postmodernist, into which he lines up Lyotard, Wolfe, Jencks, Tafuri, Kramer and Habermas in one of classic combinatoires. Would want to update it now, but I haven’t got the time.
Deane,
From outside the Biblical Studies realm comes the following:
All of these, as artificial attempts to impose limits and definitions on human culture, are imagined. Everything you’ve mentioned here is relevant, and has been noted by important figures.
As a theory (with a small ‘t’) junkie, this may seem a bit off, but I have to fall on the ‘why are you even bothering’ camp, though this sort of exercise does have a good deal of merit in terms of in internal assessment of the state of academic philosophy. On this front, I would also include Charles Taylor’s redefinition of the times as part and parcel of a ‘subjective turn’, to which he owes something to Jameson.
In other words, we’ve all got better things to do than to endlessly go on about modern vs. postmodern. Now that we know a bit more about our inborn presuppositions and the ways in which these affect knowledge, maybe it is time to renew the search for grand (though now qualified) theories of everything.
Into this ring I’ll throw my dialectic of enchantment/disenchantment/reenchantment as a theory/model of Western history.
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