On the term, "Post-Modernism"

Catherine Driscoll catherine.driscoll at adelaide.edu.au
Thu Nov 4 16:12:52 PST 1999


While I don't necessarily disagree that Augustan is just as sloppy as postmodern, it's important to remember Augustan is a periodisation sometimes more sloppily used to imply various uniformities, and such periodisations have different effects to 'postmodern' because they are deployed as transparently 'in the past'. When people use postmodernism in the most sweeping modes they not only wipe out more distinctions and contradictions than say Romantic does -- and are mostly attempting to name a much wider range of fields -- but they are making statements about the present and therefore the distinctions within, debates around, and effects of the term are far more significant.

Catherine

At 15:55 4/11/99 -0600, you wrote:
> In the past I have expressed some dissatisfaction with using
>the *term*, "Postmodernism," because of difficulty in pinning
>down who or what is or is not postmodern. However, it isn't
>all that much more ambiguous than such terms as Augustan,
>neo-classical (literary, not econ), romantic, classical, realist,
>modernist, *sturm und drang* (accurate Ger?), renaissance,
>baroque, roccoco, aristotelian, platonic (my favorite all purpose
>turn for what I don't like), etc. etc. etc. These terms are almost
>always used inaccurately because there is no accurate use of
>them -- and hence one could argue that they are always accurate
>because they take on whatever meaning they are given in a
>particular context.
>
>So perhaps we should let each other use whatever labels each
>one chooses, and respond to the substance rather than the label --
>or accept the ad hoc definition of the label and simply argue that
>it isn't applicable to a particular person (oneself or some
>specific writer, etc.).
>
>For a year or so I have chosen to be chary in my use of the term
>"post-modern," but I think with only a reasonable allowance for
>sloppiness (such as we would extend to a literary historian's
>casual use of "Augustan," it can be used as a placemarker in
>someone's discourse.
>
>Carrol
>
>
>



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