Postmodern
Theories and Texts
Jana Chien
15 Oct., 1998
"Answering
the Question: What Is Postmodernism?"
By Jean-Francois-Lyotard
(From Docherty, Thomas, ed. Postmodernism: A Reader.
New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993. p35-46)
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thesis
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postmodern sublime/unpresentable
of the postmodern art
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The phrase is related to Nietzssche's nihilism--a kind of perspectivism.
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It is also akin to Kant's aesthetics of the sublime.
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"The sublime evokes a contradictory feeling" (The Idea of the Postmodern:
A History 133). It is ". . . a strong and equivocal emotion:
it carries both pleasure and pain . . . in it pleasure derives from pain."
(p43)
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For Kant, sublime occurs "when the imagination fails to present an object
which might, if only in principle, come to match a concept." This is the
relation beween Kantian aesthetics of sublime and unpresentable. (p43)
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Lyotard's postmodern sublime is "an art of negation, a perpetual negation
. . . based on a never-ending critique of representation that should contribute
to the preservation of heterogeneity, of optimal dissensus . . . [it]does
not lead towards a resolution; the confrontation with the unpresentable
leads to radical openness" (The Idea of the Postmodern: A History
133).
II. Some key concepts of Lyotard's postmodern
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Lyotard is opposed to totality.
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Lyotard uses the term "initial forgetting" to support his
conception of the rupture of modern and postmodern. (From Lyotard, Jean-Francois.
"Note on the Meaning of 'Post-'." 1985.)
III. Outline
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A Demand
= Lyotard
aims to question Habermas' conception of unity.
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Realism
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Because of the call for "unity" and "identity," it is believed
that ". . . nothing is more urgent than to liquidate the heritage of the
avan-gardes" (p40).
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The definition of realism:
= "Realism,
whose only definition is that it intends to avoid the question of reality
implicated in that of art, always stands somewhere between academicism
and kitsch" (p41).
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Postmodern sublime
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Because of modernity, we discover the "'lack of reality'
of reality, together with the invention of other realities." (p43)
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The phrase is related to Nietzssche's nihilism--a kind of
perspectivism.
-
It is also akin to Kant's aesthetics of the sublime.
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In order to present the unpresentable, Kant shows "formlessness,
the absence of form, as a possible index to the unpresentable" (p44).
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As to the modern art, it makes effort "to present the fact
that the unpresentable exists" with "its little technical expertise" (p43).
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The Postmodern
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Lyotard's definition of the postmodern.
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Lyotard believes that postmodern is "a part of the modern,"
and there is a circular relation between modern & postmodern. (p44)
"A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern.
Postmodernism¡Kis not modernism at its end but in the nascent state,
and this state is constant" (p44).
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The difference between modern aesthetics & postmodern
aesthetics in the aspect of unpresentable.
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"modern aesthetics is an aesthetic of the sublim, though
a nostalgic one. It allows the unpresentable to be put forward only as
the missing contents; but the form, because of its recognizable consistency,
continues of offer to the reader or viewer matter for solace and pleasure"
(p46).
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"The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts
forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which denies itself
the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it
possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable; that
which searches for new presentations . . . in order to impart a stronger
sense of the unpresentable" (p46).
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ex. the works of Proust (modern) and Joyce (postmodern) both
allude something unpresentable.
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Proust--". . . what is being eluded as the price to pay for
this allusion is the identity of consciousness, a victim to the excess
of time . . . ." (p45).
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Joyce--". . . the identity of writing . . . is the victim
of an excess of the book or of literature" (p45).
IV. Questions:
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When discussing the postmodern art, why does Lyotard adopt
the conceptions of Kant and Nietzssche?
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Is there really a rupture between the modern and the postmodern?
References
Bertens, Hans. The Idea of the Postmodern: A History.
London: Routledge, 1995.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. "Note on the Meaning of 'Post-'."
1985. Docherty, Thomas, ed.
Postmodernism: A Reader. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf,
1993. p47-50.