Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 15:36:27 -0500 Subject: Re: PMC: What is Postmodernism: A Demand This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Donald Turner wrote: > > What does art that presents a "stronger sense of the unpresentable" (p.81) > look like? Are there examples of this today? I'm not sure if the "look like" part of the question is well-formed in this instance. For Lyotard's treatment of this question in the work of a contemporary painter, please see Sigmar Polke, _Transit_. The book includes plates of the artist's work, in addition to Lyotard's essay "Vorstellung, Darstellung, Undarstellbarkeit: Presenting the Unpresentable : the Sublime". Also instructive might be an article by Meyer (or is it Meier: I can't remember) on Mapplethorpe's photography in Abelove, et al. (eds.), _The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader". (This may be read more fruitfully in conjunction with Lyotard's "The General Line", which appears in both the _Political Writings_ and _Postmodern Fables_.) > What does Lyotard's "war on totality" (p.82) and rejection of the whole > mean for ethics? Are traditional grounding ethical systems also rejected? In this regard, I think you will have to deal with Lyotard's relationship to the ethics of Emmanual Levinas (Lyotard's essay in Bernasconi and Critchley (eds.), _Re-Reading Levinas_ would provide a good starting point). Lyotard was one of several philosophers who "encountered" Levinas in a way I can't describe. Levinas is certainly not easy reading, and his philosophy is considerably complicated by his receptivity to Derrida's critiques (especially "Violence and Metaphysics" in _Writing and Difference_) and his extended relationship with Blanchot, both of which provide ample examples of what his "non-allergic reaction to the Other" could be. However, the question is the rejection of totality in relation to ethics, so I would have to say that this ought to be read in conjunction with Levinas's work (particularly _Totality and Infinity_) if you want to have anything like an answer to a question as broad as the one you have asked. If you would like, I could try to summarize (although summarizing Levinas tends to give me severe headaches: I haven't read him enough to feel really comfortable doing that, and his style, which I can only describe as reiterative, makes me feel guilty for summarizing). I found Colin Davis's _Levinas: an Introduction" an excellent starting point--extremely concise. As for "traditional grounding ethical" systems, if I understand the question correctly, the answer is that they are rejected without reservation. > How can live in a manner that "invent[s] allusions to the conceivable that > cannot be represented?" (82) What does such a life look like? What is the > human relationship to those "Ideas of which no presentation is possible?" > (78) Here Lyotard is speaking in the idiom of Kant's _Critique of Judgment_ and all the problems it has bequeathed. I believe that the Introduction to the _Critique_ is probably the best resource. I will see if I can dig up the copy I started reading and provide a summary. All this highlights Lyotard's adlinguisticty. Shall we talk about it? name="bbell01.vcf" Content-Description: Card for Bayard G. Bell filename="bbell01.vcf" begin:vcard n:Bell;Bayard tel;pager:(404) 743-7292 tel;fax:(404) 727-0079 tel;work:(404) 727-7157 x-mozilla-html:TRUE org:Emory University;Division of Campus Life version:2.1 email;internet:bbell01-AT-emory.edu title:Local Support/MIS adr;quoted-printable;quoted-printable:;;Drawer DDD=0D=0A 605 Asbury Circle;Atlanta;Georgia;30322 x-mozilla-cpt:;3 fn:Bayard G. Bell end:vcard
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