About the Book
The arguments over postmodernism are among the most important intellectual debates of our time. Going beyond the poststructuralist controversy in its interdisciplinary scope, postmodernism questions the fundamental civil, political, ethical, and cultural criteria that make criticism and theory available, necessary, legitimate, or, indeed, even possible. But given that the key texts are widely scattered, the broad range of arguments remains relatively unknown.
Postmodernism: A Reader gathers in one volume a comprehensive selection of articles, essays, and statements by leading figures -- among them Lyotard, Habemas, Jameson, Baudrillard, Eco, and Rorty -- writing across the divergent terrains on which the struggles over postmodernism are taking place: in the fields of philosophy and politics, in the artistic and cultural avant-garde, architecture and urbanicity, feminism and ecology, and in the Third world. The material assembled here enables a serious and rigorous consideration of the question "Are we at -- and should we endore -- the end of modernity?"
Table of Contents:
Part One: Founding Propositions 1. Answering the Question: What is postmodernism?, by Jean-Francois Lyotard 2. Note on the Meaning of 'Post-', by Jean-Francois Lyotard 3. The Entry into Postmodernity: Nietzsche as a turning point, by Jurgen Habermas 4. Postmodernism, by or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson Part Two: Modernity Compete and Incomplete 5. Modernity - An Incomplete Project, by Jurgen Habermas 6. The Structure of Artistic Revolutions, by Gianni Vattimo 7. The Last Days of Liberalism, by David Cook 8. The Fall of the Legislator, by Zygmunt Bauman Part Three: Aesthetic and Cultural Practices 9. Toward a Concept of Postmodernism, by Ihab Hassan 10. Introduction to Terpsichore in Sneakers, by Sally Banes 11. The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism, by Douglas Crimp 12. Postmodernism in the Visual Arts: A question of ends, by Paul Crowther 13. The Evil Demon of Images and the Precession of Simulacra, by Jean Baudrillard 14. The City of Robots, by Umberto Eco 15. Against Intellectual Complexity in Music, by Michael Nyman Part Four: Crisis in the Avant-Garde 16. The Search for Tradition: Avant-garde and postmodernism in the 1970s, by Andreas Huyssen 17. The Negation of the Autonomy of Art by the Avant-Garde, by Peter Burger 18. The Sublime and the Avant-Garde, by Jean-Francois Lyotard 19. The International Trans-Avant-Garde, by Achille Bonito Oliva Part Five: Architecture and Urbanicity 20. Toward a Critical Regionalism: Six points for an architecture of resistance, by Kenneth Frampton 21. The Emergent Rules, by Charles Jencks 22. The Duck and the Decorated Shed, by Robert Venturi 23. Postmodern, by Paolo Portoghesi Part Six: Politics 24. Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism, by Richard Rorty 25. Politics and the Limits of Modernity, by Ernest Laclau 26. The Condition of Post-Marxist Man, by Andre Gorz 27. Toward a Principle of Evil, by Jean Baudrillard Part Seven: Feminism 28. Feminism, by Reading, Postmodernism, Meaghan Morris 29. Feminism and Postmodernism, by Sabina Lovibond 30. Social Criticsim without Philosophy: An encounter between feminism and postmodernism, by Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson 31. The Demise of Experience: Fiction as stranger than truth?, by Alice Jardine Part Eight: Periphery and Postmodernism 32. Postmodernism or Post-colonialism Today, by Simon During 33. Postmodernism and Periphery, by Nelly Richard 34. Rereading Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: A response to the 'postmodern' condition, by Rey Chow
About the Author :
Thomas Doherty is professor of english at Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author of Reading (Absent) Character; John Donne Undone; On Modern Authority; and After Theory: Postmodernism/Postmarxism.
