>... in australia, do you get the
>impression, as i do, that the wars between 'postmodernism' and 'marxism'
>have been pretty much left behind as irrelevant and gratuitous in the
>face of the wars which escalated over 'black armband history', etc? the
>only ones going on about the dangers of 'postmodernism' now are
>right-wingers like kramer, who know that both 'postmodernism' (whatever
>that is) and marxism signal a politicisation of the academy and its
>work. and that struggle is hardly romantic, especially as it relates
>to land rights, compensation, apologies and so on. derrida's lecture in
>melbourne was precisely a way of working through the issues of justice
>and recompense and apologies -- all very significant issues in
>australian politics at the moment, and certainly not as
>self-congratulatory or easy to digest for the audience as a pat on the
>back for apparently working in 'the public good'.
I'm not sure how to connect the first and last parts of this post -- is the struggle you refer to the politicisation of the academy? -- so I'll reply to them rather separately.
So far as I can see, yes, most people rallying around the postmodernism flag in Australia are those who want to tear it down or prove it doesn't exist. And, yes again, they often tend to not conflate but align postmodernism and Marxism. A course on postmodernism in this department, for example, talks about debates surrounding the term/category and what it has been used to mean and do, not any kind of espousal of its relevance.
The exception is, and perhaps this warrants an 'of course' by now, that people still use postmodernism to describe a range of trans-media conventions which appear at different times and continue with different degrees of intensity in different contexts. That use of postmodernism, as a collection of related genres, is still current and at times clearly useful.
I don't think 'postmodernism' as any kind of political approach was ever really big here, except among some people who actually meant something more like post-structuralism. In academic contexts it was always used in quite a qualified way, and I can't think where in Australia it would have been used to refer to Derrida.
Your second point about Derrida is absolutely right, although I actually haven't read any of Derrida's stuff on recompense and mourning and so on, these are very significant issues in Australia at present and perspectives on these issues, especially ones we would be unlikely to see otherwise approached in the media, should be enthusiastically welcomed.
I'll admit though that I think the adulation displayed for Derrida had less to do with the appropriateness of his topics than it did with that desire to see intellectual work as both meaningful and exceptional. That's not necessarily a good thing, but I think it's completely understandable in the current academic climate and it doesn't exclude the possibility that he was the focus for this because people expected him to say something challenging. That is, after all, part of the authenticity being craved.
Catherine