Opener
Thinking back over your reading of Hassan (and, with luck, reviewing your notes),
how would you characterize his positioning of modernism<->postmodernism? What are
his main ideas about this relationship? Where did you find yourself especially lost,
confused, at sea?
Post your initial comments/questions, and then discuss these with the others as they
appear. . .
Jason Booth:
My specific dilemma with this piece is my lack of knowledge regarding the term modernism.
While I was able to infer a great deal about the idea of postmodernism, I felt a
certain void in my understanding because, after all, the word is post(modernism).
David Baird:
A term like PM is about the simplest data type we can imagine. The amount you don't
know about what it means is almost infinite.
David Baird:
Words are classified as poetic or philosophic. Imagine if the "real" story of what's
happening in this room could get written. Like Hassan would say, we're "constructing
our own reality" just by breathing, we "change" every nanosecond as our biochemistry
does things we can only dream about, our "present is shaped by the ideas of the institution"
we're functioning inside of, and our "ideas about art have suddenly become questionable"
as we're expected to theorize about art and reality.
Abbey Hoffman:
So Jason...what is all this that you learned, then, about PM, and how would you go
about linking it w/M?
Ash Downs:
well, he points out that positioning postmodernism as a discernable movement following
what has come to be known as modernism, suggests a linearity that postmodernism eschews.
Stacey Dittmar:
I got the feeling that Hassan doesn't even know what his own position is towards the
meanings behind modernism and postmodernism. It seemed like he purposely used overly
huge words to make the reader feel as confused as he is.
Abbey Hoffman:
David: where do you find these notions in Hassan, specifically? It's difficult sometimes
to think about this material and control abstraction, but give it a shot...
David Baird:
If you know what PM is, then you know what life's all about.
Abbey Hoffman:
Stacey: whups!! EE!!! What makes you think Hassan's confused?
Abbey Hoffman:
Ash: I'm not quite getting this: does Hassan position and/or eschew?
Abbey Hoffman:
All: what does Hassan mean by "indeterminances"?? Why use that 'neologism' (whassat??)
and what's he getting at?
David Baird:
How does everyone feel about their black on white discussion with strangers?
Joyce Smaragdis:
Jason,
I often often felt the same way that you do in regard to your feelings about modernism.
However, the chart Hassan offerred seemed to help to clarify some of my questions.
Hassan's dialectical chart on post-modernism and modernism was especially helpful,
although I imagine the theoretical implications of outlining, categorizing, defining
the term post modernism is problematic in itself. It seems to me in the paragraph
following the chart he problematizes it (the chart) himself.
Hoffman Abbey:
Joyce: interesting....but can you specify some?
Marc C. Hutcheson:
Hassan makes an interseting point when he says "the battle of the books is also
an ontic battle against death. That may be why Max Planck believed that one never
manages to convince one's opponent...one simply tries to outbelieve them". Is he
saying that ethical privatism cannot be avoided? If so, then why bother discussing these
works? (not that I am anti-education, I'm just playing devil's advocate).
Ash Downs:
the questions Hassan addresses in the first paragraph illustrate the complexity and
simultaneous confusion surrounding this whole conception of postmodernism. What
the hell does it refer to specifically? If nothing, than as a term, what function
does it serve other than to confuse and misguide collective analysis?
Stacey Dittmar:
It's almost as if he has no real opinion of his own. He uses quotes from other people
to basically say, "Hey, were all confused." He even goes so far as to list the conceptual
problems with the term postmodernism, making me assume that he doesn't know what to make of the whole genre. Perhaps its really just the name .... postmodernism,
that he doesn't quite know how to explain. He can't seem to pinpoint any one clear
definition, and this confuses me .... a lot!
Hoffman Abbey:
Marc: what would you mean by "anti-privatism"? What's an "ontic battle"??
David Baird:
Life = Death
Words are just another expression of the body. Writers talk
alot to stay alive.
Jenn Lindberg:
I found myself emeshed in Hassan's time relationships, and the quantifying names and
facts that he brought into his argument. I find myself lost, however, with all of
these said facts, especially the long list of names that I had no real experience
with. He seems to be saying that the term post - modern in itself is misleading, for it suggests
a time era -- one in which overlaps with the era of moderism. Post - moderism suggests
"after modern," which in itself is an era contradiction. There is an overlap in time, yet not in substance.
Hoffman Abbey:
Ash: not sure where you're heading here--what's all that stuff in the 1st parag about
music?
Jenn Lindberg:
David : What exactly do you mean, and how does that relate to Hassan?
Amanda Kathleen Pedersen:
When I read this assignment, I tried to latch on to a definite theme - something logical
- something clear. I never found anything to latch on to. It seemed that, with
every conclusion, there was a new question. I spent hours on the couch, with a pocket dictionary in one hand and a pencil in the other, and am as confused as I was when
I started. Perhaps I was supposed to fail at finding a definition. This isn't all
going to have an answer, is it?
Ash Downs:
Abbey, Hassan simply points out that using the term "post-modernism" itself suggests
a linear movement in history which arguably post-modernism rejects.
Hoffman Abbey:
But Stacey, stating it in that way raises an issue about how one explains things;
how does Hassan's method challenge traditional ways of explaining ideas/movements/etc?
Marc C. Hutcheson:
David: are you saying that if we understand PM, then we have life figured out and
therefore fulfilled our quest for a meaningful existence?
Ash Downs:
Abbey, where are you geting music from?
David Baird:
I mean to say that my words only have meaning to you if you care about what I'm saying.
Which is why we like talking to our friends and reading love poems and listening
to music.
Hoffman Abbey:
Ash: I'm pretty doubtful about that "simply"; what else is going on here? why suggest
that the term "post" has problems and then continue using it?
Marc C. Hutcheson:
Abbey: where does Hassan use the term "indeterminances"? I can't find it.
Drew Zwicke:
I wish Hassan would elaborate on his statement that "we have...reinvented our ancestors-and
always shall." This implies the action of incorporating techniques used by previous
authors to create something which is less than new. Should this practice be avoided in favor of creating a work which lacks similarities to any other?
Joyce Smaragdis:
Abbey,
When I read the term neologism, I had to look it up in the dictionary, in fact, I
had to look up a lot of the words he used because I had never seen many of them.
Nevertheless, the term neologism (if a remember correctly) is greek and means new
(neo) word (logos). The term also means different things in different fields of study--however,
it seems to me that Hassan was offering the term indeterminances as a neologism which
could describe/define postmodernism. I have just noted that you have sent me a note asking to explain about my earlier posting. Well, let me try: it seems to me that
postmodernism resists the centering of everything. That is it severely undermines
the notion that any center exists (i.e. GOD). Defining a term seems to give it a
certain center. I have written a lot. I wait for your response.
David Baird:
Hassan claims PM can be a "measure of the historical velocity of literary concepts,"
but we all know that only readers care about literary concepts, I would reverse his
sentence and claim that PM is a measure of the literary velocity of historical concepts, or how good art is.
Shakespeare is one of my favorites, and he is pre-modern.
Ash Downs:
Hassan essentially arrives at a conclusion which was foreshadowed by the complexity
of the questions he wished to address. Postmodernism can't be overly specific in
reference to anything because as a term there's little consensus about its meaning
and what fields it applies to. Not to mention the fact that the supposed ideology of postmodernism
comes into direct conflict with the idea of pigeon-holing such a broad range of concepts
and fields.
David Baird:
Your body is the only battlefield you can know.
Jason Booth:
Hassan's text definitely seems to suggest a linear movement. From early on he writes,
"In this perspective postmodernism may appear as a significant revision, if not an
original episteme, of twentieth-century Western societies" (274). Later he points
out that "A new term opens for its proponents a space in language" (275). And, as I
stated earlier, the word itself suggests linearity in that it is after modernism.
However, I do not feel Hassan positions himself in this camp of linearity, rather
he makes these statements since the "psychopolitics, if not the psychopathology, of academic
life" has generated the term he must use (even if it doesn't necessarily reflect
what he perceives the term embodying). From his ten points, "Modernism and postmodernsim
are not separated by an Iron Curtain or Chinese Wall; for history is a palimpsest,
and culture is permeable to time past, time present, and time future. We are all,
I suspect, a little Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern, at once" (277).
Stacey Dittmar:
I agree with Ash. Hassan says that, when he does actually give some defininate characteristics
of the genre, postmodernism is "playful, paratactical, and deconstructionist. It
sometimes carries the label of neo-avant-garde." All I have to say is confusing...confusing....confusing. Perhaps, Abbey, he is challenging the bounds of our
realistic mind something we have to abandon with this type of genre.
Stefan Hall:
A slice off a cut loaf is never missed.