The Rabbit Hole

Post Modernism – Research/BrainstormSection: Important Works/Critisms + Deconstructing a work with a post-moderism p.o.v. Key Works by the philosophers of post modernism

• Foucault, Michel (1970) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon.

• Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

• Marcus, George E. and Michael M. J. Fischer (1986) Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Norris, Christopher (1979) Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.

• Tyler, Stephen (1986) Post-Modern Ethnography: From Document of the Occult To Occult Document. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Vattimo, Gianni (1988) The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics. In Post-Modern Critique. London: Polity.

CritisismsRoy D’Andrade (1931-) In the article “Moral Models in Anthropology,” D’Andrade critiques postmodernism’s definition of objectivity and subjectivity by examining the moral nature of their models. He argues that these moral models are purely subjective. D’Andrade argues that despite the fact that utterly value-free objectivity is impossible, it is the goal of the anthropologist to get as close as possible to that ideal. He argues that there must be a separation between moral and objective models because “they are counterproductive in discovering how the world works.” (D’Andrade 1995: 402). From there he takes issue with the postmodernist attack on objectivity. He states that objectivity is in no way dehumanizing nor is objectivity impossible. He states, “Science works not because it produces unbiased accounts but because its accounts are objective enough to be proved or disproved no matter what anyone wants to be true.” (D’Andrade 1995: 404).Rosenau(1993)identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:
1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamently rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgement.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.
Melford Spiro argues that postmodern anthropologists do not convincingly dismiss the scientific method. If anthropology turns away from the scientific method then anthropology will become the study of meanings not the discovering of causes which shape what it is to be human. Spiro further states that “the causal account of culture refers to ecological niches, modes of production, subsistence techniques, and so forth, just as a causal account of mind refers to the firing of neurons, the secretions of hormones, the action of neurotransmitters… .” Spiro critically addresses six interrelated propositions from John Searle’s 1993 work, “Rationality and Realism”:
1. Reality exists independently of human representations. If this is true then, contrary to postmodernism, this postulate supports the existence of “mind-independent external reality” which is called “metaphysical realism”.
2. Language communicates meanings but also refers to objects and situations in the world which exist independently of language. Contrary to postmodernism, this postulate supports the concept of language as have communicative and referential functions.
3. Statements are true or false depending on whether the objects and situations to which they refer correspond to a greater or lesser degree to the statements. This “correspondence theory” of truth is to some extent the theory of truth for postmodernists, but this concept is rejected by many postmodernists as “essentialist.”
4. Knowledge is objective. This signifies that the truth of a knowledge claim is independent of the motive, culture, or gender of the person who makes the claim. Knowledge depends on empirical support.
5. Logic and rationality provide a set of procedures and methods, which contrary to postmodernism, enables a researcher to assess competing knowledge claims through proof, validity, and reason.
6. Objective and intersubjective criteria judge the merit of statements, theories, interpretations, and all accounts. Spiro specifically assaults the assumption that the disciplines that study humanity, like anthropology, cannot be “scientific” because subjectivity renders observers incapable of discovering truth. Spiro agrees with postmodernists that the social sciences require very different techniques for the study of humanity than do the natural sciences, but “while insight and empathy are critical in the study of mind and culture…intellectual responsibility requires objective (scientific methods) in the social sciences. Without objective procedures ethnography is empirically dubious and intellectually irresponsible (Spiro 1996).” “The Postmodernist genre of ethnography has been criticized for fostering a self-indulgent subjectivity, and for exaggerating the esoteric and unique aspects of a culture at the expense of more prosiac but significant questions.” (Bishop 1996: 58) Christopher Norris believes that Lyotard, Foucault, and Baudrillard are too caught up in the idea of the primacy of moral judgments (Norris p.50). Also in reaction to the Postmodern movement Marshall Sahlins addresses several post-modern issues which includes the definition of power. “The current Foucauldian-Gramscian-Nietzschean obsession with power is the lastest incarnation of anthropology’s incurable functionalism…Now ‘power’ is the intellectual black hole into which all kinds of cultural contents get sucked, if before it was social solidarity or material advantage.” (Sahlins, 1993, p.15).
Principal Concepts
 “…is the platonic doctrine that universals or abstractions have being independently of mind” (Gellner 1980: 60). “Realism is a mode of writing that seeks to represent the reality of the whole world or form of life. Realist ethnographies are written to allude to a whole by means of parts or foci of analytical attention which can constantly evoke a social and cultural totality. (Marcus and Fischer 1986, p.23).Self-Reflexivity Reflexivity can be defined as “The scientific observer’s objectification of structure as well as strategy was seen as placing the actors in a framework not of their own making but one produced by the observer, “ (Bishop 1996: 1270). Self-Reflexivity leads to a consciousness of the process of knowledge creation (Bishop 1996: 995). It emphasizes the point of theoretical and practical questioning changing the ethnographers’ view of themselves and their work. There is an increased awareness of the collection of data and the limitation of methodological systems. This idea underlies the postmodernist affinity for studying the culture of anthropology and ethnography.Relativism Gellner writes about the relativistic-functionalist view of thought that goes back to the Enlightment: “The (unresolved) dilemma, which the thought of the Enlightenment faced, was between a relativistic-functionalist view of thought, and the absolutist claims of enlightened Reason. Viewing man as part of nature…requires (us) to see cognitive and evaluative activities as part of nature too, and hence varying from organism to organism and context to context. (Clifford & Marcus (eds), 1986, p.147). Anthropological theory of the 1960’s may be best understood as the heir of relativism. Contenporary interpretative anthropology is the essence of relativism as a mode of inquiry about communication in and between cultures (Marcus & Fischer, 1986, p.32).

-Apply Concepts to a sample work. Allow class to help w. second.Sample Work = Slaughterhouse five
Examples: Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
                    - Use Sci-fi and post war conventions.
                    - non linear plot (jumps in both space and time)
                    - confuses Identity of author.
                  Ragtime – Doctorow
                  - unusual narrative p.o.v
                  - artificial line between historical narrative + fictional narrative.

Other Exp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature

B.B.Bonus Question: What movie character is depicted as a snowman in the image above?