POLITICS 305 MODERN POLITICAL THEORY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) POSTMODERNISM

Sammy Basu Dept of Politics Willamette University

Postmodernism

Skepticism, cynicism, nihilism, perspectivalism, anti-foundationalism, post-foundationalism, post-structuralism,

Incredulity towards meta-narratives

Post-modern, post-modernist

Modern=

What is modernism and pre-modernism?

French philosophy

Michel Foucault

Jacques Derrida

Jean-Francois Lyotard

Four Strains to Postmodernism

1. epistemology – post/anti

- everything is text

- literary deconstruction

Architecture

Examples

Contemporary and post-modern art and architecture

examples

2. awareness of dangers of rationalization/normalization/governmentality

- power/knowledge

- philology, genealogy, archaelogy

3. new informational and transformational technologies

- expose façade, simulacra

- affirm plasticity,

- ambivalence of cyborgism

Orlan’s performance art

4. new social movements and ethics

- affirm otherness

- hybridity and heteroglossia

Today

Theological perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL8MhYq9owo (4min)

Zizek on reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhDuYfZa5dE (2min)

Useful sites:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Nietzsche

The NFC

Useful sites:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/

http://www.focusing.org/apm_papers/madison2.html