Postmodernism/Post-marxism: Good books?
- Thread starter chilango
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butchersapron
Bring back hanging
David Harvey's one (The Condition of Post-modernity) is top-notch. Suprisingly, Alex Callincicos one is quite good too. Peter Dews Logics of Disintegration is another relaly good critical overview.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Zizek?
I just finished reading that violence one, which was pretty good. Dont know if it fits into your category though.
I just finished reading that violence one, which was pretty good. Dont know if it fits into your category though.
gorski
customised free radical
Many people write on non-existent stuff, usually called "fiction" - not sure what it's doing in the Philosophy section...
Generally I side with Habermas on this one: Modernity has not yet spent its potential.
I would recommend his book on the topics, of course, as the best we have!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/
You can see Chomsky's objections to their "obfuscations", too, I suppose...
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/5/8.html
[Oh, I learnt a lot in this guy's seminar:
http://www.mzos.hr/svibor/6/01/013/proj_e.htm]
All else is a lot of... bullocks...
Btw, have a look at this, also:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/
The name escapes me now, but I think the guy who invented the term was a Dutch journalist, if memory serves. He later abandoned it, together with many others, realizing that a new epoch does not start with sticking a "post-" prefix to a current one...
And I don't buy the bull about the prevailing tertiary industries somehow almost automatically meaning a new epoch, together with some changes to the ownership structures of society, in terms of "many little owners mean a radical difference" somehow, when in fact the very notion of ownership isn't even being challenged at an elementary level...
Then, there's the people who feel that it starts the minute you extract yourself from your surroundings, by, say, shoving a headphone set onto your head and listen to your MP3s or whatever...
It's all very unambitious and just not at all serious, even though Habermas gives them the time of day and entertains them handsomely...
You know, when you come to a Human Rights conference and a "post-modernist critic of it all" starts and finishes his lecture by impersonating an aeroplane or just sits there and refuses to say anything... Oh, well...
This is as far as I would go wasting my time on the subject, really...
Generally I side with Habermas on this one: Modernity has not yet spent its potential.
I would recommend his book on the topics, of course, as the best we have!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/
You can see Chomsky's objections to their "obfuscations", too, I suppose...
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/5/8.html
[Oh, I learnt a lot in this guy's seminar:
http://www.mzos.hr/svibor/6/01/013/proj_e.htm]
All else is a lot of... bullocks...
Btw, have a look at this, also:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/
The name escapes me now, but I think the guy who invented the term was a Dutch journalist, if memory serves. He later abandoned it, together with many others, realizing that a new epoch does not start with sticking a "post-" prefix to a current one...
And I don't buy the bull about the prevailing tertiary industries somehow almost automatically meaning a new epoch, together with some changes to the ownership structures of society, in terms of "many little owners mean a radical difference" somehow, when in fact the very notion of ownership isn't even being challenged at an elementary level...
Then, there's the people who feel that it starts the minute you extract yourself from your surroundings, by, say, shoving a headphone set onto your head and listen to your MP3s or whatever...
It's all very unambitious and just not at all serious, even though Habermas gives them the time of day and entertains them handsomely...
You know, when you come to a Human Rights conference and a "post-modernist critic of it all" starts and finishes his lecture by impersonating an aeroplane or just sits there and refuses to say anything... Oh, well...
This is as far as I would go wasting my time on the subject, really...
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Zizek? hear the name a lot...any good?
I've not read any "theory" for about 8 years...(apart form anthropology) so I'm more than a bit rusty.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Many people write on non-existent stuff, usually called "fiction" - not sure what it's doing in the Philosophy section...
Generally I side with Habermas on this one: Modernity has not yet spent its potential.
I would recommend his book on the topics, of course, as the best we have!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/
You can see Chomsky's objections to their "obfuscations", too, I suppose...
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/5/8.html
[Oh, I learnt a lot in this guy's seminar:
http://www.mzos.hr/svibor/6/01/013/proj_e.htm]
All else is a lot of... bullocks...
Btw, have a look at this, also:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/
The name escapes me now, but I think the guy who invented the term was a Dutch journalist, if memory serves. He later abandoned it, together with many others, realizing that a new epoch does not start with sticking a "post-" prefix to a current one...
And I don't buy the bull about the prevailing tertiary industries somehow almost automatically meaning a new epoch, together with some changes to the ownership structures of society, in terms of "many little owners mean a radical difference" somehow, when in fact the very notion of ownership isn't even being challenged at an elementary level...
Then, there's the people who feel that it starts the minute you extract yourself from your surroundings, by, say, shoving a headphone set onto your head and listen to your MP3s or whatever...
It's all very unambitious and just not at all serious, even though Habermas gives them the time of day and entertains them handsomely...
You know, when you come to a Human Rights conference and a "post-modernist critic of it all" starts and finishes his lecture by impersonating an aeroplane or just sits there and refuses to say anything... Oh, well...
This is as far as I would go wasting my time on the subject, really...
Tbh. I'm not that bothered whether it ends up all being bullshit. I have enough "real life" reading as it is...fancy a bit of a diversion.
If you want to read about postmodernity from one of it's most influential thinkers take a look at Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition. In it, amongst other things, he advances the theory that postmodernity is characterised by 'incredulity towards metanarratives', so those grand over-arching theories that seek to allow us to understand the world and our place in it totally (Marxism, major religions, Freudianism, etc).
Another decent text by him (more about art and culture and postmodernity) is his short but dense essay "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernity?", which is often included as an addendum to the first book. It's a complicated, and not easilly digestible look at modernism and postmodernism in art and literature.
As far as post-Marxism is concerned a quite interesting (and short) text is Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", which is a fascinating attempt to think about how the individual becomes the subject of capitalist ideology, and how capitalism regenerates itself through ideology, that's influenced by structuralist (and poststructuralist) ideas about language and identity.
Another decent text by him (more about art and culture and postmodernity) is his short but dense essay "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernity?", which is often included as an addendum to the first book. It's a complicated, and not easilly digestible look at modernism and postmodernism in art and literature.
As far as post-Marxism is concerned a quite interesting (and short) text is Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", which is a fascinating attempt to think about how the individual becomes the subject of capitalist ideology, and how capitalism regenerates itself through ideology, that's influenced by structuralist (and poststructuralist) ideas about language and identity.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I liked it!
Gorski is not wrong though...
Doesn't stop it from being interesting, mind.
Žižek? Prepisivač!!! A bloody "copier"! Nowt new, nowt original, just regurgitates other's work - a veritable copywriter...
This. And not to forget the whole deliberatly obscurationist bit as well.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I wouldn't say he was obscurationist, tbh.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
You think? I have found most of his stuff pretty clear to understand.
Although I did try reading The Parallax View
gorski
customised free radical
Here I have to disagree, as well: at least when he goes into his art analysis he is almost never an "obscurantist", to my mind. It's also frequently quite good and interesting to see how he applies other's ideas... spitting in all directions...
But nowt new!
He made a career of other's work and selling himself.
I may be wrong on this one but whatever I read and saw/heard...
But nowt new!
He made a career of other's work and selling himself.I may be wrong on this one but whatever I read and saw/heard...
Multitude's good, imo. Better than Empire because it's actually readable (and that from someone who recommended Lyotard and Althusser /\).
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Here I have to disagree, as well: at least when he goes into his art analysis he is almost never an "obscurantist", to my mind. It's also frequently quite good and interesting to see how he applies other's ideas... spitting in all directions...
But nowt new!
I may be wrong on this one but whatever I read and saw/heard...
I second this. But dont let it put you off!
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Don't.
Multitude is great, as is Empire which I think is the more recent one. Suprising nobody has mentioned old Freddy Jameson if you are looking for 'Post Marxism'
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Mutitude is the later one - it's esesntially a reply to the various criticisms of Empire, so i'm not sure how much sense it'll make on its own.
Second the David Harvey one - great stuff.
Zizek isn't terribly original except as a critic where he is very insightful and persuasive. I don't think his philosophical program is supposed to be original (kind of a Romantic notion, no?) - rather it's 'to bugger Hegel with Lacan, so that you get monstrous Hegel'. Ha ha.
You could read some Stanley Fish; he's a good example of the slippery academic anti-foundationalist. Almost everybody loathes him, so he must be doing something right.
Zizek isn't terribly original except as a critic where he is very insightful and persuasive. I don't think his philosophical program is supposed to be original (kind of a Romantic notion, no?) - rather it's 'to bugger Hegel with Lacan, so that you get monstrous Hegel'. Ha ha.
You could read some Stanley Fish; he's a good example of the slippery academic anti-foundationalist. Almost everybody loathes him, so he must be doing something right.
Third for Harvey
You might find Chantel Mouffe interesting, particularly her later stuff: on the political, the return of the political, the democratic paradox. I found hegemony and socialist strategy really boring and gave up and read a summary online.
You might find Zygmunt Bauman interesting in terms of the sociology of postmodernity and also (kind of) post-marxist.
Postmodernity and its discontents (Bauman) is a great book imo & a very interesting counterpoint to something like Harvey's condition of postmodernity.
If you're interested in postmodernity as a social condition/concept, as opposed to postmodernism as a cultural movement I have loads of stuff (mostly from sociology) on this.
You might find Chantel Mouffe interesting, particularly her later stuff: on the political, the return of the political, the democratic paradox. I found hegemony and socialist strategy really boring and gave up and read a summary online.
You might find Zygmunt Bauman interesting in terms of the sociology of postmodernity and also (kind of) post-marxist.
Postmodernity and its discontents (Bauman) is a great book imo & a very interesting counterpoint to something like Harvey's condition of postmodernity.
If you're interested in postmodernity as a social condition/concept, as opposed to postmodernism as a cultural movement I have loads of stuff (mostly from sociology) on this.
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