Synopsis of FREDRIC JAMESON
Synopsis of FREDRIC JAMESON
''Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism''
In this essay, Jameson lays out the differences in culture between the modern and postmodern periods. He also devotes a lot of time to the effects of these changes on the individual. Jameson is concerned with the cultural expressions and aesthetics associated with the different systems of production. He is not interested in a mechanism of change. This is a primarily descriptive article. Jameson draws on the fields of architecture, art and other culturally expressive forms to illustrate his arguments. The heaviest emphasis is placed on architecture. It is essential to grasp postmodernism as discussed here not as a style, but as a dominant cultural form indicative of late capitalism.
Postmodernism is differentiated from other cultural forms by its emphasis on fragmentation. Fragmentation of the subject replaces the alienation of the subject which characterized modernism. Postmodernism is concerned with all surface, no substance. There is a loss of the center. Postmodernist works are often characterized by a lack of depth, a flatness. Individuals are no longer anomic, because there is nothing from which one can sever ties. The liberation from the anxiety which characterized anomie may also mean a liberation from every other kind of feeling as well. This is not to say that the cultural products of the postmodern era are utterly devoid of feeling, but rather that such feelings are now free-floating and impersonal. Also distinctive of the late capitalist age is its focus on commodification and the recycling of old images and commodities. A prime example of this is Warhol's work, as well as Warhol himself. Jameson refers to this cultural recycling as historicism - the random cannibalization of all styles of the past. It is an increasing primacy of the 'neo' and a world transformed into sheer images of itself. the actual organic tie of history to past events is being lost.
All of
''Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism''
In this essay, Jameson lays out the differences in culture between the modern and postmodern periods. He also devotes a lot of time to the effects of these changes on the individual. Jameson is concerned with the cultural expressions and aesthetics associated with the different systems of production. He is not interested in a mechanism of change. This is a primarily descriptive article. Jameson draws on the fields of architecture, art and other culturally expressive forms to illustrate his arguments. The heaviest emphasis is placed on architecture. It is essential to grasp postmodernism as discussed here not as a style, but as a dominant cultural form indicative of late capitalism.
Postmodernism is differentiated from other cultural forms by its emphasis on fragmentation. Fragmentation of the subject replaces the alienation of the subject which characterized modernism. Postmodernism is concerned with all surface, no substance. There is a loss of the center. Postmodernist works are often characterized by a lack of depth, a flatness. Individuals are no longer anomic, because there is nothing from which one can sever ties. The liberation from the anxiety which characterized anomie may also mean a liberation from every other kind of feeling as well. This is not to say that the cultural products of the postmodern era are utterly devoid of feeling, but rather that such feelings are now free-floating and impersonal. Also distinctive of the late capitalist age is its focus on commodification and the recycling of old images and commodities. A prime example of this is Warhol's work, as well as Warhol himself. Jameson refers to this cultural recycling as historicism - the random cannibalization of all styles of the past. It is an increasing primacy of the 'neo' and a world transformed into sheer images of itself. the actual organic tie of history to past events is being lost.
All of