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144 LEITERS IN CANADA 1986 who insist on having everything that has been written about the subjunctive. (DAVID F. STERMOLE) Arthur Kraker and David Cook. The Pastmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-Aesthetics CultureTexts Series. New World Perspectives. 320. $15.95 paper When the term 'postmodern' entered critical discourse over a quartercentury ago, it was used to describe the lamentable epigone of the great project of modernity. This view has remained remarkably persistent, despite the efforts of later champions of a distinctly postmodern culture; however, notions of the provenance and the limits of postmodernism have not proved so unshakeable. Most recently, postmodernism has become identified as the cultural arm of the poststructuralist program, and it is this cultural configuration to which Arthur Kroker and David Cook address themselves in The Pas/modern Scene. The aim of this book is twofold: on the one hand, the authors attempt to uncover the 'theoretical site' of the postmodern condition; at the same time, they present an examination of the artifacts of postmodern culture, particularly the visual arts and television. Kroker initiates his theoretical interrogation of the postmodern condition (the author of each section, except the first and the last, is identified by his initials) with a discussion of Charles Norris Cochrane's work on Augustine. Reading against Cochrane, Kroker presents the 'historical thesis' that the Augustinian 'closing of the eye of the flesh' betrays an awareness of 'the nihilism at the heart of Western consciousness: which is only reawakened with the insights of Nietzsche and Foucault. At this point, Kroker returns to the main lines of the current postmodern debate, and his subsequent discussion of Nietzsche, Bataille, and Jean Baudrillard is a more incisive contribution to this book. Armed with Baudrillard's notion of the simulacrum and his revisions to Foucault's meditations on power, Kroker effectively demonstrates the role of a purely relational 'dead power' in motivating a vapid but 'hyper' contemporary culture. The postmodern scene is thus the site of a 'cycle of disintegration, exhaustion, and "viciousness for fun, '" where the real disappears into a 'vast and seductive simulation.' This analysis is applied powerfully by each author, whether in an exposure of the Cynical gender reversal in a Calvin Klein ad, in an examination of Eric Fischl's art, or in David Cook's eloquent account of the career of Roland Barthes. The Pas/modern Scene is a somewhat limited book, however, in that despite the theoretical prowess of its authors and their ability to read specific works of art, the text conveys little new insight into the postmodern condition. The book is up to date: the Eurythmics, Madonna, and Carol Pope and Rough Trade all make appearances. But the notions of a 'postmodern detritus: of 'the deadness of the spirit: and of 'a culture of forgetting, of forgetting of origins and destinations, ... from trend to trend, from ad to ad' are ones which have already been establishedamong literary critics in their discussions of the contours of modernism and postmodernism. This does not, of course, undermine the veracity of the authors' claims; it is simply to suggest that in equipping themselves with 'the radical insights of poststructuralist art ... and poststructuralist theory: Kroker and Cook appear to promise a more potent critique of postmodern culture than The Postmodem Scene actually delivers. Kroker and Cook are most successful finally in their description of the intellectual culture that informs the postmodern condition. In demonstrating how contemporary life conforms to their theoretical model, however, they can at times give the reader occasion to ponder the useful limits of cultural analysis: what is to be gained, for instance, from employing critical theory to designate AIDS, Anorexia, and Herpes as poststructuralist diseases? (THOMAS CARMICHAEL) George Whal1ey. Studies in Literature and the Humanities. Innocence of Intent. Selected and introduced by Brian Crick and John Ferns McGill-Queen's University Press 1985. x, 270. $27.50 Malcolm Ross. The Impossible Sum of Our Traditions: Reflections on Canadum Literature. With an introductory essay by David Staines McClelland and Stewart. 211. $19.95 Each of these books gathers together a judicious selection of the writings of a distinguished Canadian humanist. At this point, however, resemblances give way to contrasts. George Whalley...

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