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These readings are organized into four sections. The first explores the wellsprings of the debates in the relationship between the postmodern and the enterprise it both continues and contravenes: modernism. Here philosophers, social and political commentators, as well as cultural and literary analysts present controversial background essays on the complex history of postmodernism. The readings in the second section debate the possibility-or desirability-of trying to define the postmodern, given its cultural agenda of decentering, challenging, even undermining the guiding "master" narratives of Western culture. The readings in the third section explore postmodernism's complicated complicity with these very narratives, while the fourth section moves from theory to practice in order to investigate, in a variety of fields, the common denominators of the postmodern condition in action.
"Those who recognize that the concept of postmodernism is with us to stay and who meet the necessary responsibility of bringing it to our students will welcome this book. It is ample in its offerings; and from the point of view of the potential user, the convenience and utility of the collection are prime virtues.
"The mix is refreshing. The selections are both varied and representative; they touch on essential aspects of the topic and exhaust its full range; they also underscore the conflictive nature of what is called 'the postmodern'. " — John W. Kronik, Cornell University
"This is an outstanding book—timely, lucid, and much-needed—whose aims are well-fulfilled and that moves with ease from theory to practice."— Alison M. Lee, The University of Western Ontario
Introduction: Reading A Postmodern Reader
I. Modern/Postmodern
Preface
"Postmodernity, or Living with Ambivalence."
Zygmunt Ban
"The Postmodern Weltanschauung and its Relation to Modernism: an Introductory Survey."
Hans Bertens
Excerpts from The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.
Jean-François Lyotard
"Modernity versus Postmodernity."
Jürgen Habermas
"Mapping the Postmodern."
Andreas Huyssen
"Modernism versus Postmodernism: Towards an Analytic Distinction."
David J. Herman
II. Representing the Postmodern
Preface
Excerpts from Postmodernism and its Critics.
John McGowan
"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences."
Jacques Derrida
"Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism."
Linda Hutcheon
"Toward a Concept of Postmodernism."
Ihab Hassan
"The Context of the Concept."
Charles Russell
III. Entanglements and Complicities
Preface
Excerpts from Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Fredric Jameson
Excerpts from The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction.
Michel Foucault
"The Precession of Simulacra."
Jean Baudrillard
"The Resolution of Revolutions."
Thomas Kuhn
"Black Culture and Postmodernism."
Cornel West
"From Here to Modernity: Feminism and Postmodernism."
Barbara Creed
Excerpts from Thinking Fragments.
Jane Flax
"Modernism's Last Post."
Stephen Slemon
IV. Postmodern Practices
Preface
"Postmodernism as Border Pedagogy: Redefining the Boundaries of Race and Ethnicity."
Henry Giroux
"Existentialism, Alienation, Postmodernism: Cultural Movements as Vehicles of Change in the Patterns of Everyday Life."
Agnes Heller
"Postmodern Blackness."
bell hooks
Excerpts from Dissident Postmodernists.
Paul Maltby
"Hybridity, the Rap Race, and Pedagogy for the 1990s."
Houston A. Baker, Jr.
"Towards Cultural History."
Catherine Belsey
Index