In this Book
- Observing Complexity: Systems Theory and Postmodernity
- Book
- 2000
- Published by: University of Minnesota Press
summary
Shakes up postmodern criticism with paradigms from the social and techno-sciences. The rubric of systems theory brings together conceptual models and approaches in the sciences and social sciences that study complexity. It attempts to provide a coherent means of describing all systems, whether organic or inorganic, and offers a theory of knowledge that can account for the integration of humans in the social, informational, and ecological systems in which we are enmeshed. Observing Complexity brings the major concepts and foremost thinkers of systems theory into interaction with the major figures of postmodern theory. The format is multiplex and open-a rich montage, including interviews, exemplary essays, and staged dialogues. The writers’ aim is not to solidify theory but to provide a thorough explication and an open-ended exploration of how systems theory can address, in a fresh and productive way, theoretical questions that too often have led to impasses between different schools of postmodern theory. Contributors: Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers U; Jonathan Elmer, Indiana U; N. Katherine Hayles, UCLA; Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Cornell U; Eva Knodt; Marjorie Levinson, U of Michigan; Niklas Luhmann; Brian Massumi, SUNY, Albany.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-viii
- I. Systems Theory and/or Postmodernism? Historical, Political, and Ethical Frames
- 2. No Exit? (Response to Luhmann)
- pp. 51-56
- II. Of Realism and Recursivity: Systems Theory and the Postmodern Episteme
- III. Systems Theory in Resonance with Major Postmodernists
- 12. The Autonomy of Affect
- pp. 273-298
- Contributors
- pp. 299-300
- Permissions
- pp. 301-302
Additional Information
ISBN
9780816652914
Related ISBN(s)
9780816632985
MARC Record
OCLC
614986231
Pages
316
Launched on MUSE
2015-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No