[lbo-talk] Terry Eagleton and the Gospels

[Jeffrey Fisher]

On 12/22/07, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> >
> > On 12/22/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > On Dec 22, 2007, at 1:58 PM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> > >
> > > > the straw men he knocked down in that book,
> > > > particularly wrt postmodernism
> > >
> > > Yeah, and there was that whole book on postmodernism in which he - by
> > > design! - didn't quote a single text. It was all about an ethos, you
> > > see.
> > >
> >
> > Heh. Say what you want about postmodernists, but we are always quoting
> > texts. lol. :)
>
> I haven't read the book, but as Doug describes it, Eagleton was correct
> not to quote texts, because there are no "postmodern texts" to quote.
> There are structuralist texts. There are deconstructive texts. There are
> dialogical texts. There are . . . . texts, but they are all postmodern
> texts, includding Doug's text, Jeffrey's text, and the text I am writing
> now. Postmodern describes the ethos (AND the counter-ethos) of the
> period.

i haven't read the book, either, so i'll stop with saying that postmodernism
as a position and the postmodern as the period (both of which involve a
variety of not-always-compatible positionalities) are different things, but
that doesn't let one of the hook for pointing to whatever it is one is
talking about. if it's an ethos, that's fine, but it helps to talk about
specific examples instead of some "thing" floating around in the air.
otherwise, it's a little bit like saying the era is an era of terrorism, but
we're not going to talk about specific terrorist groups or acts, because
they are so diverse, but instead talk about terrorism, which is a coherent,
cohesive ethos independently of any specific examples of terrorism or
terrorist groups. that doesn't seem very helpful or very intellectually
responsible.

personally, i've found kevin hart's _postmodernism_ very good on just this
point, and i've used it for teaching.

ymmv.

j