Post-Modernism has been debated, attacked and defended for over three decades. It is, however, not just a fashion or style but part of a greater movement in all areas of culture, and one which stubbornly persists like its parent, Modernism. The Post-Modern Reader is a seminal anthology that presents this trend in all its diversity, as a convergence in architecture and literature, sociology and cultural theory, feminism and theology, science and economics.
For this new edition, editor Charles Jencks has provided an entirely new definitive introductory essay 'What Then Is Post-Modernism?' that reflects on the movement's coming of age. The book also encompasses essential classic texts on the subject by John Barth, Umberto Eco, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, Jean-François Lyotard and Robert Venturi, while incorporating new articles by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, John Gray, Ihab Hassan and Anatole Kaletsky. Each text is introduced and contextualized got the reader with a new short introductory passage.
- A new edition of a classic anthology of 26 texts covering the full gamut of Post-Modern thought from architecture and literature to economics and theology.
- The Reader includes key texts by John Barth, Umberto Eco, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, Jean-François Lyotard and Robert Venturi.
- A book edited by the most influential figure behind the Post-Modern movement – Charles Jencks.
- A timely and informative publication for students that captures the renewed interest in Post-Modernism.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Charles Jencks 8
Post-Modernism – The Ism that Returns
Part 1 Defining the Post-Modern 12
Charles Jencks 14
What Then Is Post-Modernism?
Jean-François Lyotard 38
Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?
Andreas Huyssen 54
Mapping the Postmodern
Margaret A Rose 65
Defining the Post-Modern
Part 2 Literature and Architecture 82
John Barth 84
The Literature of Replenishment
Umberto Eco 95
The Postscript to The Name of the Rose: Postmodernism, Irony, the Enjoyable
Linda Hutcheon 98
Theorising the Postmodern: Towards a Poetics
Ihab Hassan 114
From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: The Local/Global Context
Felipe Fernández-Armesto 125
Pillars and Posts: Foundations and Future of Post-Modernism
Jane Jacobs 138
The Kind of Problem a City Is
Robert Venturi 151
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
Charles Jencks 162
The Language of Post-Modern Architecture and the Complexity Paradigm
Paolo Portoghesi 178
What Is the Postmodern?
Part 3 Sociology, Economics, Feminism, Science 186
Zygmunt Bauman 188
Is There a Postmodern Sociology?
David Harvey 199
The Condition of Postmodernity
Robin Murray 220
Fordism and Post-Fordism
Anatole Kaletsky 232
9/15 – The Birthpangs of Post-Modern Economics?
Susan Rubin Suleiman 243
Feminism and Postmodernism: A Question of Politics
Craig Owens 260
The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism
Tito Arecchi 279
Chaos and Complexity
John Gray 284
Evangelical Atheism, Secular Christianity
David Ray Griffin 292
The Reenchantment of Science
David Bohm 314
Postmodern Science and a Postmodern World
Charles Birch 324
The Postmodern Challenge to Biology
Edward Goldsmith 332
Gaia and Evolution
Index 344
About the Author :
Charles Jencks is an architectural theorist, landscape architect and designer, whose books on the history and criticism of Modernism and Post-Modernism are widely regarded throughout the world. His 1977 book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, which has evolved over seven new editions, defined Post-Modernism as a cultural movement and popularized its use in relation to architecture. He is currently writing a new definitive book on the subject, The Story of Post-Modernism, for publication in the autumn of 2011 for Wiley. In recent years, Jencks has become a leading figure in landscape architecture. He continues to write and lecture internationally.
