In this Book
- The Passing of Postmodernism: A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: State University of New York Press
- Series: SUNY series in Postmodern Culture
summary
Examines the increasingly prevalent assumption that postmodernism is over and that literature and film are once again engaging sincerely with issues of ethics and politics. The Passing of Postmodernism addresses the increasingly prevalent assumption that a period marked by poststructuralism and metafiction has passed and that literature and film are once again engaging sincerely with issues of ethics and politics. In discussions of various twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers, directors, and theorists—from Michel Foucault and Slavoj Žižek to Thomas Pynchon and David Lynch—Josh Toth demonstrates that a certain utopian spirit persisted within, and actually defined, the postmodern project. Just as modernism was animated by an idealistic belief that it could finally realize the utopia beckoning on the horizon, postmodernism was compelled by an equally utopian belief that it could finally reject the possibility of all such illusory ideals. Toth argues that this specter of an impossible future is and must remain both possible and impossible, a ghostly promise of what is always still to come.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- p. ix
- CHAPTER ONE: The Phantom Project Returning: The Passing (On) of the Still Incomplete Project of Modernity
- Introduction
- pp. 1-6
- Ruptures and Specters
- pp. 7-18
- Exorcisms Without End
- pp. 18-23
- CHAPTER TWO: Spectral Circumventions (of the Specter): Poststructuralism, Derrida, and the Project Renewed
- Private Irony All the Way Down?
- pp. 45-60
- The Force of Derrida’s Indecision
- pp. 61-73
- CHAPTER THREE: Writing of the Ghost (Again): The Failure of Postmodern Metafi ction and the Narrative of Renewalism
- Neither Logocentric nor Logo Centric
- pp. 75-89
- The Project of Renewalism
- pp. 124-137
- A Conclusion . . . Perhaps
- pp. 137-145
- Works Cited
- pp. 183-191
Additional Information
ISBN
9781438430379
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
615624511
Pages
210
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No