Are there such things as peripheral modernity and postmodernity? This groundbreaking book focuses on the notions of modernity and postmodernity in two countries that never before have been studied comparatively: Argentina and Greece. It examines theories of the postmodern and the problems involved in applying them to the hybrid and sui generis cultural phenomena of the «periphery». Simultaneously it offers an exciting insight into the work of Jorge Luis Borges, Ricardo Piglia, Dimitris Kalokyris and Achilleas Kyriakidis, whose syncretist aesthetics are symptomatic of the mixing up of different and often opposed aesthetic principles and traditions that occur in «peripheral» locations. This book will be very useful to scholars and students of Latin American, Modern Greek and comparative literature as well as to those interested in Borges studies.
Postmodernism may seem a particularly inappropriate term when used in conjunction with a region that is usually thought of as having only recently, and then unevenly, acceded to modernity. Yet in the last several years the concept has risen to the top of the agenda of cultural and political debate in Latin America. This collection explores the Latin American engagement with postmodernism, less to present a regional variant of the concept than to situate it in a transnational framework. Recognizing that postmodernism in Latin America can only inaccurately be thought of as having traveled from an advanced capitalist "center" to arrive at a still dependent neocolonial "periphery," the contributors share the assumption that postmodernism is itself about the dynamics of interaction between local and metropolitan cultures in a global system in which the center-periphery model has begun to break down. These essays examine the ways in which postmodernism not only designates the effects of this transnationalism in Latin America, but also registers the cultural and political impact on an increasingly simultaneous global culture of a Latin America struggling with its own set of postcolonial contingencies, particularly the crisis of its political left, the dominance of neoliberal economic models, and the new challenges and possibilities opened by democratization. With new essays on the dynamics of Brazilian culture, the relationship between postmodernism and Latin American feminism, postmodernism and imperialism, and the implications of postmodernist theory for social policy, as well as the text of the Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle of the Zapatatista National Liberation Army, this expanded edition of boundary 2 will interest not only Latin Americanists, but scholars in all disciplines concerned with theories of the postmodern. Contributors. Xavier Albó, José Joaquín Brunner, Fernando Calderón, Enrique Dussel, Néstor García Canclini, Martín Hopenhayn, Neil Larsen, the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group, Norbert Lechner, María Milagros López, Raquel Olea, Aníbal Quijano, Nelly Richard, Carlos Rincón, Silviano Santiago, Beatriz Sarlo, Roberto Schwarz, and Hernán Vidal
Implicit within claims that society itself is in some sense postmodern is an argument about the priority of consumption as a determinant of everyday life. In this view, mass media advertising and market dynamics lead to a constant search for new fashions, new styles, new sensations and experiences. Material goods are consumed as `communicators'; they are valued as signifiers of taste and of lifestyle. This volume examines the viability of this portrait of contemporary society. Mike Featherstone explores the roots of consumer culture, how it is defined and differentiated and the extent to which it represents the arrival of a `postmodern' world. He examines the theories of consumption and postmodernism among contemporary social theorists such
DIVAn examination of the increased presence of Japanese media and popluar culture in the rest of Asia and the way it has transformed Japanese self-understanding./div
Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.
In this bracing book. Beatriz Sarlo offers a remarkably clear, forthright, and forceful statement of what precisely cultural criticism is and might be in our age of manic consumption, commercialization, popularization, and mass marketing.
This collection of essays reappraises the contributions made by modernist movements from regions generally regarded as peripheral or semi-peripheral to a global aesthetic of Modernism. It particularly focuses on European semi-peripheries, combining theoretical chapters and individual case studies to examine the cultural and aesthetic complexities of so-called peripheral modernisms. Contributing to research on the ‘transnational turn’ in New Modernist Studies, the volume takes recent scholarship on postcolonial modernisms one step further by exploring a broader geopolitical expanse than the (formerly) colonised regions under global capitalism. It highlights the local and translocal specificities of modernist movements from regions such as Eastern and Central Europe and the Mediterranean to offer new insights into the concept of global modernism.
Since its first appearance in 1981, critical regionalism has enjoyed a celebrated worldwide reception. The 1990s increased its pertinence as an architectural theory that defends the cultural identity of a place resisting the homogenising onslaught of globalisation. Today, its main principles (such as acknowledging the climate, history, materials, culture and topography of a specific place) are integrated in architects’ education across the globe. But at the same time, the richer cross-cultural history of critical regionalism has been reduced to schematic juxtapositions of ‘the global’ with ‘the local’. Retrieving both the globalising branches and the overlooked cross-cultural roots of critical regionalism, Resisting Postmodern Architecture resituates critical regionalism within the wider framework of debates around postmodern architecture, the diverse contexts from which it emerged, and the cultural media complex that conditioned its reception. In so doing, it explores the intersection of three areas of growing historical and theoretical interest: postmodernism, critical regionalism and globalisation. Based on more than 50 interviews and previously unpublished archival material from six countries, the book transgresses existing barriers to integrate sources in other languages into anglophone architectural scholarship. In so doing, it shows how the ‘periphery’ was not just a passive recipient, but also an active generator of architectural theory and practice. Stylianos Giamarelos challenges long-held ‘central’ notions of supposedly ‘international’ discourses of the recent past, and outlines critical regionalism as an unfinished project apposite for the 21st century on the fronts of architectural theory, history and historiography.
An English-language translation of the MLA Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize and LASA Premio Iberoamericano award-winning Spanish-language book, Arguedas/ Vargas Llosa. Dilemas y ensamblajes, Mabel Moraña offers the first comparative study of two of contemporary Latin America's central literary figures: Mario Vargas Llosa and Jose Maria Arguedas.
