Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 21:57:13 -0800
From: fhar-AT-cats.ucsc.edu (FenriR)
Subject: Re: Deleuze and Postmodernity


On Mon, 5 Dec 1994 mani writes:

->Frankly, I can't see how Huyssen can say 
->that "even in America, poststructuralism offers a theory of 
->modernism, not a theory of postmodernism," when he's already said 
->that "...the American appropriation of structuralist 
->and especially poststructuralist theory from France reflects the extent 
->to which postmodernism itself has been academicized since it won its 
->battle against modernism..." (pg.170) "...there are definite links 
->between the ethos of postmodernism and the American appropriation of 
->poststructuralism..." (pg.235n.24) By the way, what does this appropriation 
->mean, Jon, In terms of your idea of institutional placement? Doesn't it 
->make the theorized postmodernism something which reaches beyond the 
->Anglo-American context? And more generally, why the obsession to keep 
->PoMo American? 

  While I would tend to agre with you that this whole issue appears more and
more to be a False Problem, I see no reason not to take issue with things
which don't matter...it just makes it all the more harmless...right?
  In any case, although I can't answer your latter quetions with any
certainty, I do feel myself able to respond to the way in which you view
Huyssen's words on poststructuralism and postmodernism vs. modernism
(although I may be somewhat presumptuous as I haven't actually read Huyssen's
book).  But as far as the quotes you've cited are concerned, I see no 
inconsistency.  In the first quote, it would seem to me that Huyssen is
speaking of poststructuralism qua postsructuralism, which is, as he appears
to be saying, modern, not postmodern.  However, in the latter two quotes,
he speaks not of postructuralism as such, but the process of appropriation
of poststructuralism (among other things), which is decidedly postmodern.
To that end^H^H^H, I would have to agree with him.  If there's one thing
that can characterize the PoMo Co., I think it's gotta be appropriation...
but all of this is moot really.
->
->love 
->
->mani
->

--(Wouldn't you like to know what my real name is...;)...)

|~-_ _-~  |\  |\ /|     |     /\  "Freedom exists, and also the will exists;
|   ~-_   | \ | X |     |     {}  but freedom of the will does not exist,
|~-__- ~  |  \|/  |  ~-_|_-~  \/  for a will that aims for its own freedom
|_-~~-_   |  /|\  |   _-|-_   /\  aims at the unknown."
| ~-_  ~  | X | \ |  ~  |  ~  {}       --"Mario & the Magician", Thomas Mann
|_-~ ~-_  |/ \|  \|     |     \/  ***May the Winnebago Bunny be with you!***


     ------------------