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What Is Post-Postmodern Literature? An Introduction
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- Опубліковано 8 сер 2024
- Because Postmodernism proper wasn't a huge fucking mess by itself already.
David Foster Wallace's seminal essay E Unibus Pluram, on the need to overcome postmodernism in literature:
jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf
Michael Chabon's brilliant essay Trickster In a Suit of Light, on how entertainment is often perceived as quintessentially bad (especially in the American short story market):
conference.operaamerica.org/in...
James Wood's less awe-struck (but very healthy) essay on why Post-posmodernism might not be that incredibly cool after all:
newrepublic.com/article/61361...
Andrew Hoberek's article After Postmodernism is also real dope, but it's not available for free online. It's on Jstor; if you're a college kid, chances are you'll be able to get it through your Uni.
Otherwise you'll have to get creative.
EDIT: apparently you can read the essay online if you register as a free user on jstor. Thanks to Paolo for the info!
... Follow me on GoodReads!
/ the-bookchemist
Man, you're the kind of guy I'd like to get a beer with.
Congrats from Spain! I am working on my BA dissertasion right now, trying to apply a Post-Postmodern reading to a couple of non-ficiton essayistic works and your videos have been incredibly useful, especially to stop freaking out about the nonexistence of the whole thing. Anyways, thanks a lot!!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A great article on post-postmodernism has been written by a literary scholar Mehdi Ghasemi under the title of "Hyperhybridism: Postmodernism is Old but not Old Fashioned." Check it out. He is also a fiction writer and employs some features of post-postmodernism in his fiction books written in the hybrid genre of "noveramatry."
THank you! This is great. I'm teaching a class on contemporary American literature and this was very helpful. I was a student of Andrew Hoberek's, so I"m using his work, and glad you found it helpful, too!
your comment that post-postmodernism should seek to repair emotional disconnection between the reader and literature reminds me of the part of Infinite Jest where Kate Gompert is describing the difference between anhedonia and clinical depression, and she mentions how art/culture teaches us to wear masks and hide our emotions. it comes off like a critique of our valuing this disconnect from emotion and our fear of appearing childlike in our sentimentality, especially in the context of the book as a whole.. so cool to find out that this section, while not only being super poignant, is also engaging in the discussion of how to advance past postmodernism
+yrrobotfriend Indeed, well spotted! Infinite Jest is, in many ways, Wallace's Post-postmodern manifesto, the book in which he tried to apply all those things he talks about in his E Unibus Pluram essay.
It sounds like I need to read that essay. I can't believe how much DFW was doing with Infinite Jest. Further confirmation of his genius. This video was really helpful, thanks for doing it!
+yrrobotfriend (def read the essay, it's insanely helpful for thinking about these things!)
Yes! I remember that exact scene, though I hadn't put it together until you mentioned it. I think it was in a bar after her purse got snatched? Damn, I can't remember anymore. I really hope I get to re-read IJ some day, but there are just so many things I need to read! Anyway, great comment!
Thank you for hearing us and discussing this topic! I wouldn't mind if you did a more extensive video. :)
How about a list of books to introduce readers into both of them? or your top picks from each?
+Valentina García Nice ideas - I'll think about them ;)!
I'd read the comments but I don't want spoilers about Infinite Jest (460 pages in!) I read E Unibus and thought it was great, but I feel naive in the fact that I haven't experienced a whole lot of literature and honestly I feel *too* open in terms of accepting these theories. But I think it's really cool stuff, and important subject matter. Thanks for the awesome video!
Holy shit... only in the last 18 months have I known about the named existence of postmodernism, when I began my postgraduate studies (Counselling Therapy) in a field opposite to my undergraduate (Zoology). I finally had a name and an academically reported movement to the way I thought and moved through society. It's been presented to me as current and the way of the future, but I have felt already ready to evolve from it. And I've ended up here! I decided to look into it after I heard it mentioned by a UA-camr I admire, Frank James, and then seeing life present examples of it now that I had an idea of it.
Yay! I'm going to read these articles. I'm super pumped!
lol i came to the party a couple years late
So glad you did this video, I don't think I have seen many people talk about post-postmodernism on BookTube. I really need to get a copy of Maps and Legends, Chabon is such a great author
+Knowledge Lost I'm sure you'd love Maps and Legends, it's a page turner ;)
very thorough explanation, for a short video. I`m also interested in the topic for a postgraduate thesis
Postmodernism is the Vaporwave of literature.
Another great video! I'll have to check out the Chabon essay :)
+A Hermit's Progress The whole of Maps and Legends is amazing - but then again, he's pretty much my favorite author!
I subbed recently after watching your review of broom of the system... the only thing that i've read that comes close to this topic, but it's a very interesting discussion and a hard thing to get your head wrapped around
+tornados2111 It most certainly is ;)
Interesting, thank you :) Honestly--I could listen to you talk about carrots, and still find it fascinating. I like your voice. Cheers.
Postmodernism is David Foster Wallace in a pair of khaki shorts.
now that's A E S T H E T I C
Great video! I love these videos of yours - the history of literature ones - so interesting! :) I just have one question - you mention that Jonathan Franzen uses narrative techniques that were 'forgotten' before him during the postmodern era.. what were these? :)
+Marie Berg Providing well-round characters with personalities and background stories, and plots with beginning and ends that never broke ontological barriers (never featured any metafiction, or at least none of the very flagrant kind). It sounds very banal (and indeed many critics question Franzen's originality, more or less appropriately), but during high postmodernism all these things had really fallen out of fashion; characters in particular were seen as linguistic constructs or subconscious projections, but NOT as people at all.
Ahh okay - thank you so much - that makes total sense! :)
I was thinking about The corrections while you were discussing an then you showed up Freedom. I really enjoy how Franzen manages to offer an intellectual view of our contemporary years while at the same time he is making you feel the narrative in a classical way. I read Middlesex a couple of years ago but I didn't even consider the postmodern aspects of the novel. I felt like I was reading classical literature set in our modern world. I'm very interested in this subject (I also watched your video on post modernism a few minutes ago and really enjoyed it. I've been following your book reviews and top lists for a while and I think this “introductory” series is a great addition to your channel) and I'd like to ask you if you have some bibliography recommendations on Literary theory in general, because though I'm more interested on contemporary texts, I feel like I need to have more academic background to fully understand what I want to understand. I'm actually studying biochemistry so it's hard to tell when a specific academic literary text is worth to be read :)
+Pablo Guzmán I felt the same with Middlesex - actually, I have only started to look at that book a bit differently after reading Rushdie's Midnight's Children, which is 100% postmodern and which is startling similar to Middlesex in so many ways (I don't know if Eugenides was being explicit or what and I'm not talking about plagiarism... but still, it's very similar).
Thanks for the great feedback and kudos for your readings, I have many friends who study science-stuff (mostly biotechnology) and I have great respect for people who're into serious literature without working within the humanities :)
As for your question, man!, literary theory is an ocean, and it's a stormy one too. If you want something comprehensive (and comprehensible), I'd suggest a good introduction - like the Oxford Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism edited by Patricia Waugh. Of course if you're interested in a specific current (structuralism or post-structuralism or whatever) there are much more specific texts, but that's a good overview of the whole field.
Also, if you feel like you'd like to get more out of specific texts you've read, you can always look for analysis or reader's guides - Continuum Contemporary has an amazing series of reader's guides that are short, to the point but immensely illuminating, and they have dealt with so many brilliant texts - including Franzen's, I think.
here's episode #2: ua-cam.com/video/kjeOZrgdRmA/v-deo.html
"...which has the worst name in the history of human thought." hahaha I couldn't agree more.
1) Your ideas on why Franzen is both popular and also gets criticized for being unoriginal makes so much sense to me. Thank you for saying them. I agree, Franzen's tactics sit so well with me because they seem to shrug off the burden of cleverness of Post-Modernism... he seems to just get down to the dirty work of characters and family dramas and straightforward plots.
2) So DFW's E Unibus Pluram is a bit of a holy text for me, especially as of a year ago when I was on the verge of entering a creative writing program. I was convinced I was going to enter an atmosphere where postmodern ideas like irony and metafiction ran rampant, and I was going to have to maneuver through that to try to write stories that, if they ran the risk of anything, ran the risk of being oversentimental. I know it's different at every school, but that hasn't been my experience. I think creative writing culture has moved pretty quickly past intense irony worship. For personal reasons, this is something I'm celebrating. (I guess that's just an anecdote I thought you might enjoy, from a CW perspective.)
3) Really excellent video, thanks once again! Brilliant as always!
+ForTheLoveOfRyan Thanks for that anecdote, I am very curious about the world of American Creative Writing courses and programs - we have nothing of the sort here in Europe, except perhaps in England, and even there they are far from enthusiastic about them - Google "Kureishi creative writing" if you're interested in a drastic position on such programs! Can't wait to read your first novel :) and thanks for the feedback as usual!
+The_Bookchemist drastic indeed :) haha! There is some of that school of thought here, but also a good amount of faith in the idea of a CW program.
You should read MFA vs NYC. It explains why the MFA style is/was less PoMo than NYC. And also why Post PoMo/MetaMo/ReMo Is so en vogue nowadays in MFA style(and even in "Post MFA" done in Millenial Fiction).
Have you considered reviewing House of Leaves by Danielewski?
All right this has nothing to do with this anything but I've been a fan of your channel ever since I discovered it early last year. Your tastes in music and literature really overlap with mine and I've bought many a book after I first heard of them here. Thanks for that! Also I can't help but remark, you look a little like Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel.
+Avi Gabhawala Do I? Nah, only a little maybe! Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Airplane Over the Seas, by the way, is my favorite album that I never listen, as it's so fucking depressing it's just never the right moment to do so, no matter how splendid it is. (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band would be another such record). Glad I could be of help by the way, and thanks for the great feedback ^^!
This is great, as most your videos are. My main interest is "post-postmodernism, " too--and I hope to be reading Eugenides and Lethem soon.
One thing, though: I thought Zadie Smith was a part of this scene, too--apparently her White Teeth was a part of it (?). (Note: I haven't read White Teeth myself, but have read Smith's On Beauty, which didn't strike me as post-postmodern.)
+Asher Deep Smith is indeed a crucial writer in this scene, and one of the founding essays in the current (Wood's Human All Too Inhuman, which I have linked in teh description box) is also and mostly about her White Teeth. Alas, although I got the book on my bedside table since 2013, I still have to read it too - but I'm getting more and more curious about it as time passes, and I hope I'll be able to read it before the year's over!
Yeah, I'll read that essay. Have you by any chance read The Fun Stuff by James Wood; and would you recommend it?
P.S. I hope I'll read White Teeth this year, too.
I have no idea if you read comments on old videos (I won't be offended if you don't ;) ). But I'm curious if you see a difference between PPM and the so-called "New Sincerity" movement. Are they just two different ways of basically saying the same thing? Or is there a meaningful difference?
Eh. Million dollar question. The general tendency is to put recent fiction into the same category (call it Post-Postmodernism, or anything else); but I take issue with that. I believe there is a crucial difference between the new sincerity of people like Wallace, Saunders or early Dave Eggers and the very playful blurrying of fictional boundaries (of all types) done by people like Chabon, Lethem, Danielewski, Diaz, Pynchon. But it's not something that can be summarized easily, and it is one of the points of my PhD research - so it's very much still a work in progress :)
Thanks for the reply! I always considered "new sincerity" to be more of a politically loaded term...implying that there's an existing "problem" of cold, emotionless, and ironic fiction. Though I was never sure if it was just a difference of attitude or an actual genre. Like you, I tend to get annoyed with its simplistic look at postmodernism, but I do enjoy some of it. You should consider more videos like this in the future! They're pretty valuable to curious non-scholars like myself.
So how is an introductory list coming along? Would be pretty cool :)
Just published it ;)
Great video. I have some serious problems with novels that are ONLY entertainment, but that is a problem of mine. I enjoy difficult stuff (that in some perverse way become entertaining for me)... anyway: actually you can read the Andrew Hoberek essay on line for free on jstor even if you aren't a college student. You can't download it but you can save the gif of each pages and print them: you have only to register as a free user.
+paolo latini Oh I didn't know that, thanks for the info ;)!
I don't have an issue with only entertaining novels, however, I do think having them do more than that provides additional value.
I dislike fiction that pretends it's more than mindless entertainment.
Like your parting thoughts to this video I'm not so sure that post-postmodernism even exists because writers like Lethem, Chabon, Eugenides, Eggers, etc still use techniques of post-modernism and they carry characteristics that fall under the post-modern definition. While people may be ready to go beyond the movement of postmodernism I think it's such a giant blanket-term that even the characteristics of certain "post-postmodern" writings fall under it's umbrella. Which isn't a bad thing, but I think most of all that when people hear the definition of a movement like "postmodernism" or "modernism" they see it as a limiting factor, a definition that sums up what they are doing or the motive behind what their work stands for and that just isn't true. Great video as always, I definitely agree with your analysis.
+BOHEMIA Totally agree - and of course some authors that are at times called PPM have nothing to do with postmodernism at all, neither proper nor post-. It's basically a big mess, and I think that today's world might be over the need for currents and movements and all that - but we'll see! Thanks for the feedback as usual :)
What kinda style of writing do u have in mind precisely?
Fascinating topic and eloquently explained! I think that there is such a thing as 'post-post-modernisme' in literature, but for me it is less about re-establishing a connection with the reader than bringing the author back into play. Especially in works of authors like Frantzen and Eggers. One of the essays I found illuminating, by the way, was Alan Kirby's, The Death of Postmodernisme and Beyond. I would be interested to know whether you agree with his analysis. And: am still looking for female authors you could qualify as post-post-modern. Maybe you have any suggestions?
+Britta Böhler As for female writers in post-PoMo, I hope you don't mind if I try an answer: you can try Alexandra Kleeman (You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine), Jennifer Egan (A visit from the Goon Squad, The Keep, Look at Me), Dana Spiotta (Stone Arabia, Eat the Document), maybe Rachel Kushner (The Flamethrowes)
+Britta Böhler I'll read that essay, now I'm curious about it! And yeah I see what you mean with your mentioning of the author - I think it's the other side of the coin, and what I tried to mention at the end of the video. As for female PPM writers, Zadie Smith is a huge figure in the whole movement/current/thing. I agree with Paolo on Jennifer Egan too, and I would add Karen Russell and (though don't quote me on this one) some of Margaret Atwood's stuff.
+The_Bookchemist Let me know what you think of Kirby's essay, once you've read it! And thank you for the suggestions of female authors. I've been circling around Zadie Smith for some years now, started some of her novels but never quite got the hang of it, so didn't finish them. But I will give it another try.
+paolo latini Thank you for your suggestions, great! I've only read Kushner & Egan, so will check out the others you've mentioned.
Check out this list : www.goodreads.com/list/show/138816.Metamodern_Post_postmodern_fiction
Thanks! I was reading Junot Diaz, Jonathan Lethan and Karen Joy Fowler and felt that they were doing something different - something smart but warm, unlike people like Pynchon and Delillo, who wrote really smart stuff that entertained me in the beginning but tired me out eventually because I couldn't see the heart in their work (with Libra being the exception). I'm not an American, which might be a problem since their stuff is deeply rooted in the American politics, and for a while I suspected my ability as a reader because I couldn't seem to appreciate their work the same way those people on the back--cover said they did. I thought (and still think) I'm not smart enough. I almost got tired of reading. But the experience of reading We are all completely beside ourselves, Motherless Brooklyn and This is how you lose her told me that there're these new people who are just as smart and are willing to show you their hearts. And now you came up with this video which further reassured my thoughts. Maybe after all I'm on the popomo side. P.S. I know all of these books/writers because of you lol
+Lone Booker I'm glad I introduced you to these people, they are some of my favorite writers too! Oh and it's completely OK sometimes to dislike books that are widely (and wildly!) acclaimed, especially if they are problematic books like Pynchon's. I know literary scholars who can't stand Pynchon at all, especially his early works! If you are looking for works with heart by those two, by the way, I would suggest Bleeding Edge for Pynchon and Underworld for DeLillo (Underworld is also quite bleak though, and very long!) :)
+The_Bookchemist Well, to contradict what I said in my previous comment, Don Delillo is actually one of my favourite writers, alongside Cormac McCarthy and Junot Diaz. But while my love for Cormac and Junot is absolute - I love every aspect of their writings - my feeling toward Don Delillo is a very interesting one. A love-hate one I may say. Like I said i think some of his work is heartless and cold and unfathomable, yet on a sentence-by-sentence basis he is just unbeatable. His perception is so frightening that he could write the hell out of everything, and that's why despite what I dislike him about, I read 4 of his books in the past 3 month. I don't do that to other authors. He's a bit like sex - even when he's bad he's still pretty good :)
And thanks for your suggestion! Actually both Underworld and Bleeding Edge are sitting in my bookshelf, waiting to be explored.
Oh and one more thing: Your english is GOOD but is vocabulary ever a problem to your reading?
Man I love Dave Eggers
Hopefully, you still read comments on this thread. I have a few questions for you: what if post-postmodernism is dead? I think the world is ready to move past the work of David Foster Wallace (no relation), and react to the post-postmodern. Do you think we're ready for a new literary movement? Wallace's "breakthrough" with Infinite Jest was almost 30 years ago; how his relevant in 2021?
P^3modernism will focus on the connection between human and robot
Good insight. There seems to be a cycle every 20 or so years in comics/graphic novels where newer styles start to emerge from a new generation. As well as some of the 'Old Guard' evolving and contributing work in these newer styles... surely similar cycles happen within the larger literary world. It's a good point you make though. Why are 'we' (lit heads) still so taken with IJ?
I think that one, our culture is in this really static artistic period. We're overwhelmed by all kinds of trivial bullshit from the internet now, which is this crazy advanced technology, and our relationship to it is still in it's relative infancy. It seems to be having a mostly negative impact on culture, homogenizing everything, which ain't doing anything to aid in the creation of anything that feels Truly Novel... (Mark Fisher's 'capitalist realism' is a great, short and concise book about the cultural stasis that's happened since the late '90's).
And two, to state the obvious, IJ is so incredibly dense and ripe for interpretation and reinterpretation, as well as certain sections seeming to become more or less relevant with the passing of time. It's seems 'omniprescient' and I feel like it definitely merits a look back every so often.
But yeah, for the most part I agree and it's strange how much time has passed without anything that different showing up between the covers of books. (unless you want to count Tao Lin or the author who wrote the poetry collection 'milk and honey' and their 'internet minimalism/autistic minimalism' (awful term) ... But i think that stuff is pretty lackluster) I read Tao Lin but I don't think it's a direction with much fertile ground.
Back from DFW' "This is water", thanks for thr further "confusion" ahahaa: jokes aside great vid!
interesting this sounds like the type of genre to describe one of the books i'm currently writing.
Great video. Just subscribed. :)
Thanks man :)
Think it with Eric Voegelin: getting back in the metaxy of life, instead of living an ironic virtualization.
If we talk more about philosophy less about literature - the future of postmodernism could be - along with K. Marx 'Thesis ->Antythesis ->Synthesis' scheme - kind of synthesis of modernism and postmodernism. I do not know only what about paralell social movements related to postmodernism, which do not necessarily match this concept.
Too idealistic.
Very interesting. One thing that has me sceptical about the existence of post-postmodernism is that it doesn't seem to have any grounding in the field of philosophy (yet). There exist postmodern philosophers (Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze etc.) but no post-postmodernist ones (yet). However I think Richard Rorty could arguably be put under this label because he accepts all the conclusions of postmodernism but then goes a step further and tries to apply them to the real world of politics and ethics, and so on. If you're interested his book "Contingency, Irony and Solidarity" is extremely easy to read considering the subject matter. Even just reading the introduction will give you a good idea of what he's all about. He talks a good deal about Nabokov and Orwell but he dedicates a whole chapter to Derrida, who's basically considered the quintessential postmodern thinker.
Thanks for the suggestion man, much appreciated :)
I would agree that Derrida is the quintessential Postmodern thinker and Max Stirner is the man behind the curtain, that is, the main forerunner. I would also emphasize the importance of Ihab Hassan, whose work is all about postmodern literature and what defines it and what qualifies it.
Since you gentlemen seem to be interested in postmodern literary theory, I would recommend Hassan's sadly overlooked "The Dismemberment of Orpheus." His book "The Postmodern Turn" is also very good, but it's out of print and pricy. Not as influential as Derrida, but I'd argue Ihab Hassan is still essential to the movement of Postmodernism. However, if you don't want to take a chance on buying postmodern philosophy (understandable) here's a short essay from 'The Postmodern Turn,' in which Hassan somewhat-famously defines the differences between modernism and postmodernism: faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/HassanPoMo.pdf
Very insightful.
I just finished Euel Arden's novel -- Down Here in the Warmth. It was written in 2020, and deals with modern topics like race riots and militia in NYC. But barely mentions race. It seems more about people stepping up and taking and teaching responsibility. It's a great novel, but why i bring it up is - its VERY post modern. Its like, NEO-postmodern. (If that's a thing) The writing is somewhat disconcerting at times as it jumps tenses during times of action. i.e. A shootout on a street is suddenly taking place in present tense and you don't pick it up at first but then after the scene you're out of breath and wondering why. (then you go back and figure out why) - And then in the 2nd half of the novel- the sections are short and all have headings like Joyce did in some sections in Ulysses (or Melville did with all his sections in Moby Dick) Definitely worth a read.
How does post-postmodernism differ from modernism (Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Faulkner, etc) ?
They're monstrously different things! The one thing they have in common is that they are both pretty far from post-modernism's anti-realist turns. Postmodern novels tended to focus on language games and impossible fictional situations and such, while modernist and PPM tend to focus on realism (even the weirder modernist techniques, like stream of consciousness, are meant to portray reality as accuratedly as possible). It's a complex topic :P
@@TheBookchemist Err, Modernists also played very heavily on language games and invented new techniques to have "anti-realist" turns (Borges, Calvino, Dada!). They were seeking to abstract what was considered natural, in order for postmodernism to happen.That's why it's called post --> modernism.
Thank you for helping me in the start of my journey toward a personal post-postmodernist aim in my fictional writing.
Something like post-postmodernism is something I won't be able to have a real opinion about until 30 years from now...
And won't be talked about anyways. Postmodernism is the new middle ages.
This how a physicist gave postmodernism a hilarious black eye and live to tell about .
For anyone who pays attention to popular accounts of physics and cosmology, quantum gravity is a thing. How could it not be? Quantum gravity is the place where the two pillars of modern physics-quantum mechanics and relativity-collide head-on at the very instant of the Big Bang. The two theories, each triumphant in its own realm, just don’t play well together. If you are looking for fundamental challenges to our ideas about the universe, quantum gravity isn’t a bad place to start.
A bit over two decades ago, quantum gravity also proved to be the perfect honey trap for a bunch of academics with a taste for nonsense and an envious bone to pick with science.
In 1994, NYU physicist Alan Sokal ran across a book by biologist Paul Gross and mathematician Norman Levitt. In Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science[3], Gross and Levitt raised an alarm about those in the new field of “cultural studies” who were declaring that scientific knowledge, and at some level reality itself, is nothing but a social construct. Unsure whether he should take Gross and Levitt at face value, Sokal went to the library and dove into the literature that they were criticizing. When he came up for air, he was much more familiar with the postmodernist critique of science. He was also appalled at the depth of its ignorance about the subject.
Most scientists respond to such nonsense with a muttered, “good grief,” but Sokal felt compelled to do more. He decided to give postmodernists a first-hand demonstration of the destructive testing of ideas that tie science to a reality that cuts across all cultural divides.
Sokal had a hypothesis: Those applying postmodernism to science couldn’t tell the difference between sense and nonsense if you rubbed their noses in it. He predicted that the cultural science studies crowd would publish just about anything, so long as it sounded good and supported their ideological agenda. To test that prediction, Sokal wrote a heavily footnoted and deliciously absurd 39-page parody entitled, “Transgressing The Boundaries. Toward A Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.”[
The paper is worth reading just for a belly laugh. It promises “emancipatory mathematics” at the foundation of “a future post-modern and liberatory science.” “Physical ‘reality’,” it declares, “is at bottom a social and linguistic concept.” He embraces the notion, seriously proposed by some, that logic itself is invalidated by “contamination of the social” When he showed it to friends, Sokal says, “the scientists would figure out quickly that either it was a parody or I had gone off my rocker.”
Sokal submitted his paper to a trendy journal called Social Text. Understanding the importance of ego, he freely and glowingly cited work by several of the journal’s editors. For their part, the folks at Social Text were thrilled to receive Sokal’s manuscript. Here at last was a physicist who was “on their side!” After minor revisions, the paper was accepted and scheduled to appear in an upcoming special “Science Wars” edition.
The bait had been taken, but the trap had yet to be sprung. That came with a piece by Sokal in Lingua Franca that appeared just after Social Text hit the stands, exposing “Transgressing the Boundaries” as the hoax it was.
Parody sometimes succeeds where reasoned discourse fails. Sokal’s little joke burst free of the ivory tower on May 18, 1996, when The New York Times ran a front-page article entitled, “Postmodern Gravity Deconstructed, Slyly.”The Sokal Hoax became a hot topic of conversation around the world!
Reactions to Sokal’s article were, shall we say, mixed. The editors of Social Text were not amused, to put it mildly, and they decried Sokal’s unethical behavior. One insisted that the original paper was not a hoax at all, but that fearing reprisal from the scientific hegemony, Sokal had “folded his intellectual resolve.” It was lost on them that had they showed the paper to anyone who knew anything about science or mathematics, the hoax would have been spotted instantly.
As most scientists did: When I heard about it, I busted a gut!
I still laugh, but the Sakai Hoax carries a serious message. In addition to diluting intellectual rigor, the postmodern assault on science undermines the very notion of truth and robs scientists and scholars of their ability to speak truth to power. As conservative columnist George Will correctly observed, “the epistemology that Sokal attacked precludes serious discussion of knowable realities.” Today, from climate change denial, to the anti-vaccine movement, to the nonsensical notion of “alternative facts,” that blade is wielded on both sides of the political aisle.
Sokal gets the last word. Quoting from his 1996 Lingua Franca article, “Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the 21st floor.)” of society in terms of “progress” has been made obsolete by the scientific, technological, political and cultural changes of the late twentieth century.
In other words postmodernism is like a religion ( as religion is defined) with a touch of chaos theory thrown in along with the glorification of our ancestors ,the unreasoning Neanderthals …..
Late to the party here, can I reject the cycnicism of postmodernism and still recognize its importance to society?
I do exactly this. But I decided for myself that there isnt and wont ever be an universal peaceful consensus. So back to Carl Schmitt and his friend/enemy distinction. The future of postmodernism is cultural neotribalism and the second coming of racial categories, grounded in evolutionary biology as a response to the failing of social justice and globalism. Global neotribalistic multipolar power nodes.
I prefer the term Metamodernism, for obvious reasons.
I just have a few doubts about this diversion from pomo, because there isn't any stylistic novelty, right?
I mean, having read Infinite Jest, for me it felt like a Postmodern thing that used techniques from other styles, such as old Russian stuff. Isn't Po-Mo also about gathering styles altogether?
Instead of saying popomo, I'd rather qualify a book as Postmodern with a Romantic (as in Byronian) agenda.
Though like you said, Po-Mo is a fuzzy concept and there is no agreement about what it means...
+br34 Exactly - that's my main perplexity too. With postmodernism, you kinda understand you're reading something new; but with PPM, you can't quite point at something specific that makes you say "there - this is no longer postmodern, it's something different." At least not something both serious AND shared by many authors.
I like your definition by the way :)!
Im leaving a comment. Hows that for postmortemdjdjd..
This comment isn't necessarily about literature, although this video does make sense in differentiating between post and post-post modernism. I've read all of the fiction of Wallace and just about to read all of Pynchon, and those two based on my personal reading experience are the two that highlight the distinction for me.
But a while back I saw a video about the show Community (I'm not sure if you have seen it) and how it is a piece of post-modernist genius. (link: ua-cam.com/video/YanhEVEgkYI/v-deo.html) For a basic synopsis of the a variety of people from very different backgrounds (age, race, religion, gender, outlook) all form a Spanish study group at a community college, but one thing that ties them all together is that they are all view themselves, or are considered failures in various degrees and ways. They all have experienced a type of fall from grace.Jeff was a successful lawyer, but was found to not have a degree and has to return to college. Shirley is a very religious mother, who starts the show with a husband who has left her for a stripper. Troy was his high school's star athlete injured loosing his scholarship at a traditional college. Britta is a passionate informed activist, that in theory fights for everything but ends up never accomplishing anything in way of progress towards any goal. Annie was her school's valedictorian, but achieved that success through a pill addiction that ended up being her downfall and has lost her chance of even attending a traditional college. Pierce is a relic of a older time when he was the main demographic, people like him were important, but now everything that was great about him is considered archaic and even repulsive by everyone around him; he has failed to adapt and even his mind is failing him. And finally Abed, he is the one that by default in society is viewed to be a failure from the start, mostly due to his neuroatypical status but his value and genius is what is revealed throughout the show.
Mostly through Abed, each episode is framed through a different meta-narrative, genre, style of film making and through these different episodes as you described in post-postmodernism are vehicles for people to connect, understand, themselves and their issues. Most of the characters end up doing so sincerely, in the way that sometimes they just become an archetype equivalent of themselves in whatever genre they are thrust into. Other times the characters explicitly play the role of an audience, where they understand there is a "bit" that is happening and they end up being the analog for the actual audience reaction to that genre. Like Shirley being appalled when Abed a meta messiah documentary.
Abed is the most post-post modern because without these vehicles that he most of the time incites, people wouldn't understand or connect to him as a person. He needs these personal uses of meta-narrative which he non-ironically loves to connect. While Jeff is is absolute opposite as the post-modern observer. It was clearly established that before the who Jeff understood and used established institutions in a way that not only subverted them but criticized them. Jeff finds little value in college or even a college degree as necessary, but only a formality, which is why he not only fakes his degree but didn't suffer in his ability to be a lawyer for not having a formal or legitimate education. His failure is only a technical one that gives him reason to scorn the established institutions. And Jeff more than any other character is conscious and aware in each episode that he is in a meta-narrative of some kind. Many times his participation of the plot of the episode is not sincere but a way to get to the end with a result he wants, revealing him to be very consciously cynical about almost everything.
But like with the post-post modernists wondering what the post-modernists were rebelling against, and the post-post modernists choosing to use the existence of meta-narratives to connect, Abed the real person that is Jeff even as Jeff uses meta-narrative as an abstraction to hide and critique systems. The truth is being critical and cynical about established symptoms does reveal something about the author, even though they are using all of these tools and references to create a boundary between the audience and the author. To be disappointed in US foreign policy, even though you don't give solutions does say something about Pynchon and his world view and his politics even though for the time being you aren't conscious of the author.
And so as the show goes on Abed's use of constant shifts of meta-narrative reveal Jeff to be an insecure, confused, and sad person despite his outward appearance. Even how they are presented as characters are complete opposites. Jeff is white, tall, classically handsome, extremely charismatic, and has actually achieved success professionally and socially. While Abed is tall although skinny, brown, not classically handsome, socially stunted, and experiences Jeff's lowest point in life as his biggest success; being in community college and just having friends.
But I think the beauty of the show is Jeff learning from Abed on how to be vulnerable, how to connect, and that it is okay to sincerely love something without critiquing it for the sake of critique.
So in a way I think that Community is a dialogue between post-modern and post post-modern, with the later showing the former that there is nothing to be afraid of in sincerity.
I..... just realized I wrote on just wrote an impromptu essay on Community. I don't know how I feel about that right now.
+abookeveryotherday Wow, that was a long comment :) will have to check the show now! Thanks for sharing these thoughts and do order these things in an actual essay, you've clearly got something to say!
wb metamodernism?
great
I consider Death Stranding, Evangelion and Raised by Wolves post-postmodernism. They abandon structures to offer a more emotional connection.
Congratulations! (Evangelion reference).
Metamodernism (post postmodernism aka popomo) oscillates between modernism and postmodernism. Yes truth is different for everyone but also there are concrete truths.
"Because Postmodernism proper wasn't a huge fucking mess by itself already." BEST QUOTE OF THE CENTURY
First I thought this channel was going to be full of the academic pyschobabble youd expect but this guy is pretty good,capable of seeing beyond labels and having a good nose for where the good stuff is....literary criticism is both drunk on itself like a dog chasing its tail and essential and vital at giving us perspective on where good thinking and language is and is going...problematic,interesting shit...very few people are up to it,maybe this guy is.
The reader brings fifty percent to the art of writing.
Has Post Post Post-Modernism emerged yet? I think it's about time
Post modernism, many interesting theories but lacking real application.
How is modernism different from postpostmodernism in their approach to a universal truth?
As far as I understand it, postpostmodernism allows for the ability for an individual to view the world through the lens of a “truth” or metanarrative, but that decision is subjective to the person in their own right
Fueled by Ramen too? We probably even have a similar taste in music too!
Post-Post-Modernism " worst name in the history of human thought" lmao! . I agree.
First
2:52 - That is very dismissive. That idea which you just described as BS has a great deal of truth to it but as you say so dogmatically it is not the whole truth.
The last thing you should do as a writer is consider the ‘needs’ of the reader. That leads to bad fiction.
is it a wig ?
Most annoying type of literature you can get.