/lit/ - Literature

Well we can't have a civil one that's for sure.

>>1250588
Why's that? I'm usually more of a /mu/tant, don't frequent /lit/ all that often.

what is a post modern thread?

I've never understood that phrase, Post-Modern. Modern means current, right? And anything after what's happening now is the future. So why is Post-Modern not simply Sci-fi?

>>1250591
A thread within a thread.

>>1250592
Post modernism is about redefining what it means to be modern. It takes the conventions of modernism and turns them upside down. In a way, post-modernism is becoming the new modernism. It's not about post-modernism being something from the future. It's about redefining what's modern.

>>1250592
>he doesn't know what modernism is!
Laughinggirls.jpg

>>1250592
Oh, and modernism dates back to the 19th century, so modernism =/= current.

>>1250592

I thought something similar. I think everyday English 'modern' does mean current. But when referring to art and literature it's more of a time period, which goes from around the late 19th century to the 1950s as far as I can tell...

What I wonder is, what will come after contemporary art? Will they have to come up with a new word to replace 'contemporary'? They have to stop naming movements this way or we will run out of words that mean 'now' :P

They even called a block at my school The New Block. After about 10 years they finally changed its name. Perhaps we should think of ourselves as part of history rather than the here and now.

Obligatory

>>1250593
This is now an Ernest Hemingway subthread.

Everyone else, carry on.

>>1250608
Did Hemingway speak Spanish well enough to converse with Castro without a translator? And are they about to make out in that picture.

I for one genuinely loved House of Leaves. Only pomo book I've read though, I'm normally more of a hard sci fi guy

>>1250613


That picture was obviously deliberately manipulated by the CIA in order to implicate Ernest Hemingway in case they might ever need to do so.

>>1250613
I don't think conversation would be that hard, Castro definately knows some english and hem lived in cuba so he must have some basic understanding, I imagine they met in the middle somewhere, talking spanglish. It wouldn't even surprise me if they did kiss, they both consider themselves so manly, a good french kiss, wouldn't change that, they are so manly they can pull it off.

Terrible genre. I second Hemingway sub-thread. Sage until we start discussing booze, bullfighting, guns, and sex.

>>1250632
Postmodern isn't a genre, its an intellectual movement... a bowel movement. HAHAHAH, I made myself laugh.

>>1250604
You do know that the reason the moderns got the name "moderns" is specifically because they viewed themselves to be the "end" of history, right?

>>1250674
I didn't know that. The name makes a bit more sense now. But still, what will they call contemporary art in 100 years?

>>1250690
who knows, we're still sort of in postmodernism, or at least we haven't made a radical split with it.

>>1250690

It will be called 'contemporary art', as the term indicates the art of the day.

I think you're getting seriously tripped up with the modern/modernist thing. Be aware that 'modern' and 'Modernism' are two entirely different things.

Of course, it doesn't help that some people use the term 'post-modern' rather than Postmodernism. The different is mostly semantic, but it's a big difference when talking about art.

>>1250702
I thought he was asking, what currently contemporary art would be called in the future. Cause it seems rather obvious that the word contemporary will likely always mean contemporary.

>>1250702
I probably am getting tripped up somewhere, since I only just found out where the name came from.
>>1250703
Yes, that's the question I'm asking. I was also raising the possibility that today's contemporary art will still be called contemporary in 100 years. But in context of where the name 'modernism' came from, that doesn't seem likely.

>>1250703

In that case, the current period is likely to be known as part of the Postmodernist era, as we've not yet had any significant movement in a different direction.
It might seem that Postmodernism has dragged on for some time, but when you consider something like the renaissance, which spanned some 300-odd years, Postmodernism may well still be in its infancy.

Fuck yes, post-modern thread.

For any of you who haven't read White Noise, I'd strongly recommend it.

Also, Paul Auster and Angela Carter.

>postmodernism thread
>no E.L. Doctorov

You're doing it wrong.

>>1250731
>Angela Carter

Fuck yeah Angela Carter!
I love me some child brides and centaur gang rape!

>>1250742

I have yet to read that one, sadly. So far, I feel the best that I've read from her is The Passion of New Eve. New Tiresias, hells yeah.

>>1250749

New Eve is definitely high tier, but Nights at the Circus and Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman are definitely her top tier works imo.

>>1250629
I like this post

>Nights at the Circus

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, ANON?! :D

Also, would you consider Nightwood by Barnes modernist or post-modern? It seems to be right between the two, and I can't place it with any degree of certainty.

Wow I didn't even know my favorite books were post modern. So what kind of people are generally into post modernism? inb4 hipsters

>>1250767
Pretty much everyone born after 1920

>>1250605

I don't think Infinite Jest is postmodern. I think it takes a lot of stylistic ideas from postmodernism, but so much of it is an affirmation of meaning that I think DFW (as well as Eggers/Franzen/Foer, etc.) is more connected to, like Dostoevsky, or Milton, or something, than he is to Pynchon (who I think of as obviously post-modern).

>Also, would you consider Nightwood by Barnes modernist or post-modern?

That would be about as modernist as it gets. Especially if your edition has the "Preface" by TS Eliot. I mean, something like "The Waste Land" seems to us to be on the line between the two, but it pretty much defines modernism.

Postmodernism is more about the ends than the means, I think. As Lyotard said: "Postmodernism is modernism with a guilty conscience."

The one that I always get concerned about is "Tristram Shandy". What do you call that? Postmodernism avant la lettre?

>>1250795

Thanks for clearing that up, anon.

>>1250793
I like you.

>>1250811
agreed

>>1250793
Nah, its postmodern, rejects the metanarrative of human advancement.

>>1250827
I love it how casually you wrote that.

>>1250811
Thanks, I like you too
>>1250827
Maybe you're just trolling but it's an interesting argument anyway--to me, while neither society nor the people in IJ successfully better their lives, but the book is sort of about the importance of WANTING to. I don't think the characters make themselves happy by the end, but I think if the book has a message, it's that you have to want to to make anything worthwhile.

>>1250845
That's a pretty post modern message there, or at least absurdist.

David Foster Wallace wrote a long book about the meaninglessness of life. He earned misery. I'm glad the cunt is dead.

The only postmodernist work that matters is that which continues the Modernist project. Writers who use postmodernism as an excuse to write imitation Victorian novels have fouled up the whole deal.

>>1250873
that's the most retarded post i've read in a month

>>1250878

Don't talk crap, enemy of literature.

>>1250880
Don't defend literature, you enemy of crap!

>>1250887

Literature needs no defending. There's marble and shit. Anyone can tell the difference providing they aren't lied to. I defend not literature, but readers.

whats up guys

>>1250878
why a month? did a cock bight your head off or something?

>>1250608
castro's got a nice hat

>>1250954
is his hat postmodern?

>moving from epistemological dominant to ontological dominant

wow literature is really taking us into new and unexplored territory I am so happy to be a part of this great movement

>>1251113
Oh, D&E you're not a part of anything.

>>1251113

no one invited you dickhead

>>1251120
>>1251135

stfu faggots its not like either of you even know what im talking about heh

>>1251113
Oh look, someone else who has some understanding of post-modernism and its characteristics.

The switch to ontology occurred during structuralism, though, which is commonly attributed to modernism (even though no one really thought/produce literature about it until after Barthes and Lacan).

The point of literature is to instill discipline into niggers. Postmodernism fails to do this.

COME ON, COME ON, I'M THE SON OF GOD, TALK TO ME ABOUT MODERNISM, YOU FUCKING WHORES!!!!!

I GIVE YOU FUCK, MY PRICK OUTPACES THE NIIIGOR FUCKEN OBEY, ANSWER THY LOINLORD LOINLORD LOINLORD LIONLORD LOINLORD LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!!

WHEN GOD GIVES YOU WORD, NIGGER STAND!

OBOOOOOOOOOOY. ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

DISCUSS POSTMODERNISM AT ONCE. I AM THE FUCK GOD, THE NIGGERMURDRA OV THOY LOOOOOIFE!

OBEY! OBEY! NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER!!!

I ORDER YOU FROM BEYOND THE RAPE

FUCKEN REPLOY.

COME ON, YA FUCKEN SHITS, LET'S TALK ABOUT CULTURAL RELATIVISM!!!!

Pynchon rules Gaddis rules and I guess that's all I've read in pomo

>>1251526

Two great novelists to be sure. Both continuing the challenge of Modernism.

>>1251547
what is the best place to start with Gaddis? haven't read anything by him and am always interested.

>ITT: Nobody really knows about postmodernism

I'll write up a couple paragraphs later if anyone is interested. I'll probably sound pretentious, but it's been my area of interest for a few years (I used to want to be a writer), so I've done a decent amount of reading/analysis.

>>1252107
Hmm, I'm afraid you already sound pretentious.

>>1252113

Sorry

Pretty drunk

Disregard earlier post then.

>>1252107
I'll spare you the trouble and simply repost something I wrote for an earlier thread:

Postmodernism is internalized in our contemporary theory, that is to say, the western school.

For the first time in history, dare I say, a movement of such decadence was able to shake the framework of the general ideologies of truth and meaning, so that no 'significant' movement could ever take its place. Philosophy, theory, criticism etc., you name it; these fields of discourse thrive on refutation -- one movement opposing or elaborating on the one preceding it.

Postmodernism, as odd and wonderful as it is, for the most part, put an end to this movement of dissidence. What came next, and manifests now, largely, is Historicism, Cultural Studies and Gender Studies. This dispersal of forms is unorganized, chaotic and seems to reflect the need for structure after the supposed "end" of postmodernism; the finality, however, was never quite realized -- I would argue we are still in it.

Not to bring in Eagleton too much, but his choice to focus on structures like theology, just after what happened throughout the 80s- 90s, is on a small scale, exactly what I'm talking about. Eagleton having influenced a blind march back into structure is one possibility; another, is of course, Eagleton follows the eventual, and moreover, natural decline of dencentralization, not unlike the English teachers, the Humanities and Academia.

Literary theory was immensely popular during the postmodernist period. Theorists became more interested with thinking literary as opposed to criticizing literature. What comes from this is an analytic rhetoric that sort of demands literature and the arts to be undone, untangled and put on show for the incoherent mess these discourses apparently are. This distrust of art and language, to be honest, is the reason why postmodernism scared so many scholars and graduates -- nothing mattered, not even meaning.

>>1252205
Some generalized tenets of postmodernism: meta narratives, recursion, wordplay, theory, rotary language and logic and a general distrust of meaning insofar as how concepts and object exist in reality or ideally.

For a brief education in postmodernism check out these few events: Indiana Uni "Conference on Style," "Deconstruction and Criticism," the MacCabe affair, Miller's MLA Presidential address, the de Man incident, the Baudrillard War essays controversy and finally Sokal.

>ITT: A whole lot of people who don't know what postmodernism is.

Just like every other postmodernism thread /lit/ has had.

>>1252222

ITT: A lot of people who care more about what they're reading than what category it falls into/how they can pretentiously discuss it

>>1252222
Personally, I found this to be pretty informative. Especially the "events":
>>1252205
>>1252206

>>1252206
Whoa whoa whoa there, postmodernism is practically defined as the rejection of metanarratives,

>>1252205
I'm not sold on your interpretation.

>>1252370
Yup. I didn't say that they approve of meta narratives, just that meta narratives are a major interest for the postmodernists such as Lyotard.

>>1252374
That's fine. I'm not going to force my reading of the period on anyone. Just figured I'd share what I do know about the movement.

>>1252378
Well you did say it was a "tenant" of postmodernism, so the wording was somewhat suggestive.

>>1252205
really?

i just thought "post modern" = synonym for "weird"

>>1252393
no its a specific type of weird, but it is generally weird.

Oh god, I'm like 40 pages from the end of Gravity's Rainbow. It's sending me into a creative spiral. I've just finished a short story and I'm working on a poem. I've decided on Mason and Dixon next, anyone wanna read my stories though?

>>1252395
i was trolling to piss off academics but okay

>>1252389
Sure. I should have said the distrust of meta narratives instead of leading the reader to infer an affirmation of meta narratives.

Sorry about not being so specific. I was just trying to give a broad, general overview of what is typically considered to be postmodern, although I think the most helpful part is the specificity of the events leading up to and continuing through postmodernism/poststructuralism.

>>1252393
unfortunately that seems to be what people think

Its weird how, at least as I see it, postmodernism is really an attempt, in several different fields, to come to terms with the realities of our current culture/society/politics whatever and yet trying to make sense of these things gets characterized by these absurd ideas like "oh postmodernism is just like, surrealism or whatever" when its not an attempt at abstraction but an attempt to understand "modern reality"

>>1252404
I find in particular the de Man incident and Derrida's response to the affair to be the most intriguing. I think this affair highlights the decadent, immoral nature of postmodernism, or it at least, in practice, implies that actions need no justification and virtuosity is put on the same immoral plane as all the evils in the world.

>>1252412
I honestly never found the de man incident to be of much significance

>>1252420
0/10

Oh yeah, the Holocaust wasn't that big of a deal. Pretty small when considering, of all things, the postmodern legacy, right?

>>1252431
I was unaware that paul de man actually caused the holocaust, I was simply under the impression he published some antisemitic essays during the war. Honestly I don't really care if people are assholes if their, when dealing with their contributions to academia.

>>1252439
The intriguing part is Derrida's defense of immorality and how he uses the Holocaust as a means to justify de Man's use of language. The implication is that the Holocaust was not immoral because these levels of "morality" do not actually exist. Going forward with this idea, every man now has justification, or a lack of the need for justification, for any and all of his actions. De Man is not responsible for his words. You're not responsible for being wrong in your reading, etc..

>>1252453
...And you see a problem with that?

>>1252458
No, I don't. Do you? Because it sounds like you don't. So, you agree with me? Nice.