Browsing by Subject "Postmodernism"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

The heart-shaped cookie knife : Miss Lonelyhearts as accelerated Bergsonian comedy
(2015-05) Sheridan, Mark Timothy; Kornhaber, Donna, 1979-; Houser, Heather
This report provides a new examination of the nature and function of laughter in Nathanael West's novel Miss Lonelyhearts, using Bergson's theory of comedy as a critical lens. This approach allows us to understand the close connection between mechanization and comedy in West's novel, and also to recognize the text's hitherto untold significance for post-industrial American literature. Building on Bergson in original ways, and incorporating the work of twentieth-century theorists such as Fredric Jameson, I argue that Miss Lonelyhearts illuminates a proto-postmodern cityscape where comedy is governed by the mechanizing logic of capital and media. West's characters, figured as comedic machines, are pushed to their biological, psychological and mechanical limits in this world, and laughter marks the moments of their breakage. Synthesizing several disparate strands of criticism on comedy, irony and media, my reading accounts for the ways in which laughter functions and malfunctions in this text, and the means by which West produces comedy from such profound tragedy.
Identification beyond the symbolic frame : Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, and the rhetorical logics of objects
(2012-08) King, Matt R.; Walker, Jeffrey, 1949-; Bremen, Brian A.
Rhetorics of identification traditionally address two questions: how does rhetoric work, who or what is involved in rhetorical relations, and how do these relations unfold and proceed, and how can and should we conduct ourselves in light of this state of things, what modes of engagement and response do we have available? Rhetoricians have drawn substantially on Kenneth Burke’s work on symbolic action in answering these questions, but this emphasis on the symbolic does not exhaust the range and nature of rhetorical relations, and other modes of relationality thus warrant our attention. My work aims to consider how our understanding of identification shifts when we move beyond the symbolic frame, when we attend to rhetorical relations without grounding our inquiry in considerations of representation, interpretation, understanding, dialectics, and epistemology. Drawing on conversations in nonrational rhetorics, object-oriented ontology, postmodernism and postmodern literature, digital rhetorics, writing studies, and video game studies, I attend to the material, affective, and singular nature of rhetorical relations. I also consider the modes of engagement this understanding of identification makes available with reference to writing pedagogy and the work of authors Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace.
Ideologies of the everyday : public space, new urbanism, and the political unconscious of bus rapid transit
(2012-12) Zigmund, Stephen Michael; Mueller, Elizabeth J.; Sletto, Bjorn
This research uses the recent development of bus rapid transit (BRT) on Cleveland, Ohio’s Euclid Avenue corridor as a case-study to explore the links between public transit, public space, and urban planning. Using Fredric Jameson’s (1981) method of textual analysis from The Political Unconscious, I explore the ways the BRT provides access to a buried class consciousness in the city as well as a “symbolic resolution” between conflicting agendas of development and equity. Contextualizing the new spaces of the BRT using a synthesis of Jameson’s (1984) theorization of postmodernism, Mike Davis’ (1990) militarization of public space, and Michel de Certeau’s (1984) spatial practices, I discuss the ways these spaces are remade by individual users as a vital public space despite the BRT’s embedded market ideology and repressive security apparatus. Additionally, I explore what BRT’s ‘ideology of form’ can tell us about the ideology of the dominant paradigm of planning today, New Urbanism, and use it as departure for a closing discussion of Utopian desires in planning.
An investigation of postmodernism research vs. practice
(2006-05) Maher, Caitlin Elizabeth; Bolin, Paul Erik, 1954-
This descriptive research study examines the connection and communication between art education researchers and practicing art teachers regarding the current trend of postmodernism in art education. It was established in this study that the world of art and consequently art education has experienced a shift in trends from modernism to postmodernism. The intent of this study was to discern what art education researchers are suggesting for a postmodern curriculum design, and further to learn through interviews and observations what and how public school art teachers understand, interpret and implement postmodern curriculum content in the art classroom. The researcher unearthed a great discontinuity between art education theorists and practicing art teachers and concludes this is a subject of study that needs to be rectified if art education is to establish itself as a meaningful part of schooling and students' lives.
Noelle Kocot Guest Lecture
(Joynes Reading Room, 2016-11-29) Valentine, Matt
Planchando consciousness : public accountability, call-out culture, and a praxis sketch in queer activist scenes
(2016-05) Venegas, Mario; Young, Michael P.; Gonzales, Alfonso
I investigate the ideological mechanisms that enable a defeatist and neoliberal conception of social justice that inform what queer activists describe as “call-out” culture. From a Gramscian point of view, I argue that the call-out, a means for correcting problems in consciousness and behavior, loses its constructive potential and becomes a punitive practice under the vocabulary of postmodern identity politics. This process creates a Foucauldian Ostrich subject who must police contradictions to sustain a static notion of safe space. I rely on in-depth interviews with queer activists in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Texas and in Oakland, CA and Seattle, WA. From these interviews, call-outs carry a key function within queer activist scenes. One, they shape political consciousness insofar as they address egregious acts like corruption or sexual harassment, and two, they sharpen one’s political position to the extent that they provide a practical means beyond prognosis of the problem. Empirically, these consciousness shaping call-outs form part of Gramsci’s Philosophy of Praxis, of working with contradictions and ironing out consciousness and political practice as a means to unify them. However, under a postmodern social justice model that displaces questions of strategy, call-outs become tools to police identities and demand loyalty, thus impeding any coalition building that weaves across different identities. Foucauldian Ostriches mobilize the call-out to create gatekeeping within activists and to impede any practical coalition building. As such, their practice aligns with neoliberal common sense in that they prescribe individual solutions to structural problems and circumscribe the terrain of struggle within cultural consumption. I then follow with theoretical tools from Gramsci such as common sense and the Philosophy of Praxis to develop call-outs that address the everyday indignities from the level of common sense, reconceptualize the call-out as a means to sift through contradictions so as to develop good sense. Finally, I provide conceptual tools from Gramsci and queer of color theoretical work to begin to develop a more historical materialist conception of queer politics.
Postmodernity and the zombie apocalypse : a comparative analysis of Max Brooks' World war z and Colson Whitehead's Zone one
(2013-05) O'Neill, Sara Pevehouse; Hutchison, Coleman, 1977-
This report offers analysis of two contemporary zombie apocalypse novels that imagine the future for the United States. By considering how Max Brooks’ World War Z and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One participate in critical conversations regarding postmodernity, this report reveals that these authors use the zombie apocalypse narrative to express concerns about social and cultural pathologies, as well as possibilities for utopian reform in the twenty-first century. By imagining the zombie horde as the radical other, the novels engage in discussions regarding racial and class inequalities in contemporary America. Ultimately, my analysis of these two texts reveals a disturbing tendency to imagine the zombie apocalypse as the solution to America’s persistent social and political dilemmas.
The raw and the Cooking Channel : gender and the branding of a niche cable identity
(2011-05) Murray, Sarah Anne; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-; Kackman, Michael S.
The proliferation of niche cable programming in the U.S. post-network era includes a meteoric rise in food television. Indicative of this move toward an increase in food-related programming is the recent unveiling of the cable offering Cooking Channel. Creators behind Cooking Channel have worked to establish a distinct brand, describing the channel as a place for “food people” who are authentically and passionately “interested in upping their food IQ” (Scripps). The discourse surrounding the Cooking Channel launch is further complicated by the fact that men have an ostensibly larger presence on the channel. Men are featured in promotional spots, press releases, and on programs that take viewers on quests to increase their cultural food capital. This project works to unravel the gendered discourses surrounding the U.S. launch of Cooking Channel, asserting that the discursive site of the foodie is leveraged in an attempt to construct a foodie identity via gendered social distinction processes. The project initially analyzes the paratextual dialogue produced by mainstream press in order to highlight the negotiation among voices charged with creating the channel’s brand. The press – spearheaded by Cooking Channel parent Scripps Networks Interactive – provides an introduction to the channel that invokes consumption of new foodie content and a streamlined branding process that is divided along historically gendered binaries. The project then considers the ideological structures that underpin Cooking Channel’s programming and reinforce its identity as steeped in the pervasiveness of perpetual normative gender ideology. In turn, the final portion of the project uproots normative and hegemonic ideals with its focus on gender liminality, considering Cooking Channel as a conflicted site of negotiation that reflects shifting discourses of masculinity and femininity. These analyses merge to form a compelling look at how gender is situated in Cooking Channel’s construction of a niche cable brand.
Stephen Dankner's Piano sonata (1992) : a journey into postmodernism
(2001-05) Bem, Bridget Judith, 1966-; Gonzo, Carroll Lee, 1936-; Mallard, Betty Parker
Stephen Dankner's Piano sonata (1992): a journey into postmodernism
(2001) Bem, Bridget Judith; Gonzo, Carroll Lee, 1936-; Mallard, Betty Parker.
"We're fighting a war against a story" : counter-histories, counter-narratives in Bodega Dreams and The People of Paper
(2017-05-09) Pérez, Alexandrea Noel; González, John Morán; Minich, Julie A
Despite a long history of Latina/os in the United States, in many cases Latina/os are still considered foreigners who exist outside of American culture. For Latina/o writers this is especially difficult, as Latina/o literature is often painted as a one-dimensional genre, filled only with stark realist narratives of social justice that do not belong to an American literary canon. For Ramón Saldívar, a generation of “postrace” writers and aesthetics has emerged, marking a new Latina/o literary movement that can address this issue. Thus, through an examination of two novels by Latino authors, Ernesto Quiñonez’s Bodega Dreams (2000) and Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper (2005), I compare how each work pushes back against both Latina/o and Anglo-American literary norms and categories. In distinct ways, each novel establishes a conventional U.S. Latina/o historical narrative and then transforms or transculturates it by appropriating canonical texts of American literature. By the end, these appropriations produce a counter-narrative which questions and subverts this traditional history of the Latina/o experience and resists imperialist definitions and representations. By questioning a one-dimensional and static Latina/o historical narrative and by recognizing current innovations in the field, Latina/o literature as a whole can overcome barriers to legitimacy and assert that Latina/os have formed and are forming a literary legacy of their own in the United States. Furthermore, we can demonstrate how multiple literatures can exist and retain legitimacy under one “nation,” clutching to the hope that we can achieve this for the Latina/o community as well.