SURVEILLANCE, the term used in the sociologic sense would describe how the society keeps observing/inspecting the mass. Today, this sense of surveillance can be easily expressed with our experiences and relationships with CCTV and the privacy on social networking on the Internet with its intermediacy. Foucault’s implication on panopticon, panopticism also gives a good example of the sense of surveillance as he explains panopticon as the architecture of surveillance.
In Discipline and Punishment (1975, translated in 1995), Foucault says: “We have seen that anyone may come and exercise in the central tower the functions of surveillance,and that this being the case, he can gain a clear idea of the way the surveillance is practiced” (p.198)
SPECTACLE in critical theory would refer to the idea based on Debord’s Society of Spectacles where he asserts that the people in this postmodern era do not perceive life as the experience of realistic material/physical consumption, but as the journey/activity in the search of ideological images; today, one’s own life is seen from a distance as it is a spectacle.
Today, we tend to see our own life as a spectacle rather than something to live.
SIMULATION denotes the methods for comprehension which use replication of experiences of the subject to be learnt, i.e., simulation allows us to see/hear/feel the world from the subject’s point of view to understand the subject.
SIMULACRA (p. simulacra/simulacrums) is a replica of ‘the subject’. The term originates in Latin word, ‘material copy/image’. In critical theory, the idea is based in the implication given by Baudrillard, which explains that a simulacrum is reproduction of a memorable/remarkable/strong sign or image. In this sense, it is said that simulacra have a hierarchy system; they are described as, copy of the model. copy of the copy, copy of the copy of the copy, and so forth. Disneyland is known for the ultimate form of simulacrum, as it presents copy of representation of imaginaries and simulations which are also the simulacra of the reality.
HYPERREALITY, the term is used by Umberto Eco to address places which represent illusions of imaginary reality in real spaces with dimensions like those American theme parks and museums do. Disneyland and Las Vegas show good examples of hyperreality. In the field of visual arts, ‘hyperrealism’ links to ‘photorealism’ and ‘superrealism’.
Hyperreal and surreal may seem to have opposite aspects, as hyperreal tends to put emphasis on the absence of reality, fake=unreal, and the like whereas surreal focuses on (the possible views of) reality. Therefore, the combination of Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney is conceptually interesting. One may think that it came out as a hyperrealistic form of Dali (image of Dali’s essence without real Dali) as a result, for it was made after both creators’ deaths; I would rather not comment like that, but I wonder what it would felt like to see the product if it were made by real Dali and Disney.
BENJAMIN, Walter (1892 – 1940) was a Jewish-German leading literacy critic, philosopher, and a member of Frankfurt school. He is known for his analysis on material conditions of creative works, and his studies of Jewish culture and German culture in Marxism. He asserts that the purpose of philosophical literary criticism is to clarify or design the understanding of things theologically by re-naming them. He wrote about Baudrillard, however, may of those writings are not yet published in English. Benjamin praised the surrealists as he talks of Paris the city which expressed the juxtaposition of darkness and brightness of modernity with commercial materials.
McLUHAN, Herbert Marshall (1911 – 80) was a Canadian writer, thinker who originally worked on English literature. He is known as a groundbreaker of media studies as his works on the mass media at the University of Toronto’s Center for Culture Technology became famous. Thus he contributed many ideas to form the concerns and topics of current media studies. Some of his famous quotes explain his innovative thoughts.
For example…
From Gutenberg Galaxy (1962):
“The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.“(p. 36)
“When technology extends one of our senses, a new translation of culture occurs as swiftly as the new technology is interiorized.” (p. 47)
“With Gutenberg Europe enters the technological phase of progress, when change itself becomes the archetypal norm of social life.” (p. 177)
“The invention of typography confirmed and extended the new visual stress of applied knowledge, providing the first uniformly repeatable “commodity,” the first assembly-line, and the first mass-production.” (p. 142)
From Culture Is Our Business (1970):
“Privacy invasion is now one of biggest knowledge industries.” (p. 24)
DEBORD, Guy-Ernest (1931 – 94) was a French political activist, film maker and Marxist theorist. He was a member of Letterist International and the Situationist International (SI). He founded Letterist faction.
FOUCAULT, Michel Paul (1926 -84) was a Poitners-born French historian and philosopher. He studies at École Normande Supérieure in Paris, was a professor of history of systems of thought, and taught in Germany, Sweden, Algiers, and France. It is said that his thoughts can be divided into three phases. In the 1960s, his main interest was human’s ‘self’ as something formed in a historical context; in the 1970s, he talked of discipline and power, and stated that the discipline is a technic which uses the power to move and control human’s natural senses; in the 1980s, he concentrated on the forms of self-relation, that is, he thought about how one finds about one’s self by relating examples in history.
BAUDRILLARD, Jean (1929 – 2007) was a French sociologist, critical theorist, and postmodernist–or he is regarded as opening the gate of the postmodernist thoughts. He suggested that consumer society is dominated by the systems of material/object/commodity signs and that their listeners and viewers are trapped in the stream of iconic, symbolic or ideological scripts, images and stories which the media use to represent stereotypes of members in particular social groups. Thus the people in the postmodern society relate them with those given stereotypical images to gain the sense of possessing their own membership, and consume what appear to be belonged to their status. Hence, importance of items has been shifted from its actual quality for practical use to its ability to show the holder’s social status. He announced that in the postmodern era, “signs are replaced by simulacra, and the real by HYPERREALITY.” (Macey, 2000, p.34) Similarly, Zizek points out that we live in the era where real is lost.
Viewing:Rear Window, The Matrix
In Rear Window (1954) Jimmy Stewart slightly turns as a voyeur.
Matrix (1999) expresses the notion of self in contemporary society, using unique words such as ‘digital-self’.
I found this comic below during the lecture, and I thought that I could relate the character in this and our perception of reality. But I’m not quite sure what I was thinking of and I cannot find my notes on this, due to my clumsiness coming from the fatigue condition. Nonetheless, I decided to leave it as meaning can be found later, or be discovered my reader rather than myself.
STRUCTURALISM is the movement of theoretical investigations of the analysis of structures which explain the universe of human beings, headquartered in France. Its peak came in 1960s in France. Structuralism’s basic linguistic aspects take Saussure’s thoughts on signs composed of ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’. Language is intellectually tangible only when the words have meaningful relationships with others, that is, it is interrelations between particulars that give signs meanings. The term, structuralism is used in works associated with schools and movements which link to Saussure, Piaget, Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, etc.
SEMIOLOGY/SEMIOTICS explain science of signs within social life. The term, ‘semiotics’ means the questions or theory of linguistic system of meanings introduced by Charles Morris. According to Morris, semiotics has three aspects; they are semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics.
Semiotics or Semiology also mean theory of signs; Peirce called it ‘semiotics’ and Saussure called it ‘semiology’. In this sense, sign could be either verbal or non-verbal.
Whilst his study was centred in linguistics, Saussure provided an assumption with an open answer for the definition of ‘sign’ in semiology study in the future, stating that semiology cannot be fully understood yet with the technology and knowledge of his time. Barthes then expanded the definition; he added every other signs of communications in social activity.
Pierce’s semiotics which is said to be more influential in the United States was developed in a different way and made the understandings or meaning of semiotics in France and the United States unlike as a result. Pierce considered the structure of sign in a triadic form, and called it ‘representamen’. A representamen works in the relationship between interpretation, symbol, and reference.
POST STRUCTURALISM is the reaction to structuralism, a variety of postmodernism. Thus, it celebrates and/or accepts chaos of the nature which cannot be read in an unified methodology; the theorist often emphasise the inevitable plurality and instability of meanings. The movements are associated with Derrida, Foucalt, Kristeva, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Lyotard, and Rorty (plus later Barthes).
DECONSTRUCTION is a style of textual analysis first suggested by Derrida. It seems that Derrida’s aim in introducing this term was to explain that a text consists of its main (protagonist) concept and opposing (antagonist) concept; therefore a text would explain both ideas whilst it does not seem to support its opponent. However, Derrida states that there is no definition to the term, ‘deconstruction’.
*sigh*
Therefore, it may be impossible to describe the characteristics of deconstruction thoughts properly.
DIFFÉRANCE is another term introduced by Derrida which is used to criticise linguistic theories. Diffeerance in French can literally translated as ‘difference’ and ‘differal’. Derrida’s use of the term was intended to explain that different combination and order of words make signs different as Saussurian linguistics says; differénce however, argues and adds the sense that there is no fixed or final meaning for a sign, as the possibility of interpretation is limitless and is beyond the limit of verbal systems.
INTERTEXUALITY explains the relationship between texts; the thought suggests that every text is made up by the connections with other things such as its authors, its readers, and the readers’/authors’ social world in the cultural and historical contexts, i.e., a text is a mosaic which borrows elements from other texts. For Kristeva, intertexuality is the key idea of semiotics.
SAUSSURE, Ferdinand de (1857 – 1913) was a Swiss linguist, is often described as the father of structuralism and semiology (meanwhile Peirce calls it semiotics), and has a great influence on structural linguistics. He explains the difference between two aspects of language, langue and parole. langue literally means ‘language’ and ‘tongue’ whilst he used this term to explain the language as an abstract system which is supported by a group of its users in the community; parole would mean ‘speech by an individual’. He claimed that his studies of linguistics, language as a medium of communication, are about langue rather than parole. His key idea was that the linguistic signs achieve meanings only when they are put in a meaningful combinations of words and have connections with other signs. For Saussureans, linguistics communication is associated with signs. The sign is made up of ‘signifier’ (set of physical items/objects, e.g. sounds, letters, etc.) and is a ‘signified’ (a concept, an image).
BARTHES, Roland (1915 – 80) was a French writer, literary theorist, and critic of French culture and society. He is well known for declaring the Death of the Author, in his article ‘La Mort de l’auteur’ (1968). He is regarded as an important personality of the study of semiotics and structuralism, whilst his took his own path from marxism and structuralism toward existentialism and poststructuralism. His main concern was the study of various kinds of signs in social life and the relationship between those signs, especially those of images and social world. In La Mort de l’auteur, he criticised traditional implication of ‘the author’ in literary works which emphasises authors’ dominance over texts; Barthes argues that this suggestion is egoistic and oppressive. On the contrary, according to Barthes, a text attains meanings not only by the author but also by being understood by readers within the literary world where the text dwells, i.e., texts reflect the social worlds of its authors and of readers, and its meanings are supported by those elements. Therefore, the traditional assumption of reading is questionable for texts should not be read with single idea given by the author, as texts would be comprehend in various ways.
DERRIDA, Jacques (1930 – 2004) was an Algeria-born French philosopher, theorist, leading figure of deconstruction movements. He was also a teacher of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. In France, he is considered as a philosopher who relates to Nietzsche and Heideger; whereas in English speaking world, it was critical theorists who found him interesting and once became enthusiastic about him although he was a rather difficult and incomprehensible one. He wrote enormously. He attacked logocentrism (or phonocentrism) and Hussel’s argument against Saussure which claims that signs themselves have meanings. It is thought that Derrida’s objective was to proclaim that the readers are creators as much as authors are, as the possibility of interpretation and re-interpretation is infinitive, because literal works contain meanings in outside of signs as well as they do as a as sets of signs, and the readers would find meanings in ‘margins’ of texts.
KRISTEVA, Julia (1941 – ) is a Bulgarian-born French professor of literature, psychoanalyst, theorist, and writer, professor of literature. She was educated by French nuns and came to Paris in 1965. She is said to be one of the most influential feminists along with Luce Irigaray and Helen Cixous; she however sees feminism as a rather questionable idea, as she claims that feminism is a new religion if it talks of the war between sexes. She was a leading member of Tel Quel, the left wing theorists group. Her works mainly lie on where semiotics, psychoanalysis, rhythmics, symbolic system, literature, and sensualism meet.
She is best known for her idea on intertexuality in the study of Bakhtin. She states that the experiences/status of amusement include both negative and positive dimensions; therefore, it is dialogical rather than monological.
She tried to identify the style and the theory of musicality in poetic language. Similarly, she tries to figure out the relationship between semiotics and subjectivity, and between love and melancholia. From her experience as a psychoanalyst, she finds her patients from particular background showing “an expression of a generalized social distress” (Macey 2000, p. 219) as their depression. The finding supports her assumption that admission of “the other exists within everyone in the form of unconscious” exemplifies “a model for a new cosmopolitan” (ibid), as we see ourselves from a distance as we do to others (especially in our era).
Viewing: Advertising and subversion of advertising messages, appropriation work.
Signifier: Pasta, Cheese, Tomato, Mushroom, Onions, A tin, Peppers
Signified: Ingredients for Pasta/Pasta-related products
“the relationships between image and text in both lolcats and silent films share striking similarities. both captions and intertitles were introduced to augment and extend the possibilities of the visual content.”
LYOTARD, Jean-François (1924 – 98) was a French lecturer, philosopher, and professor at universities in Paris from the 1960s and in the United States. He was also a member of a Marxist group, Socialisme ou barbarie. He was the postmodernist as he is known for his book, La Condition postmoderne (1979, The Postmodern Condition) which contributed greatly in theorising the idea of postmodern(ity). He describes the occurrence of postmodernity as the change (from modernity) of the mood or the worldview of intellectual organisations after the 19th century. In La Condition post-moderne, Lyotard declares the decline of grand narratives (or grand-metanarratives)–the term which he used to describe the characteristics of modernity that states that everything can be explained through an ultimate universal eye whereas in the era of postmodernity, the more accepted method of understanding of things is understanding by little independent narratives.
His other works include Phenomenology (1954), The Libidinal Economy (1974), The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (1983), Peregrinations (1988), The Inhuman (1988), Political Writings (1993), and Lyotard Reader (1989)
HOBSBAWM, Eric John (1917 – 2012) was a British historian whose main subject is the history of the 19th century Europe, especially that of Britain and labour histories of Europe and Latin America. He was the member of the Communist Party Historians’ Group. He states that history is also narrative and that Marx’s materialism supports well to talk of the history of industrialisation.
He pointed out the paradox of the communist revolution suggesting that although the aim of Russian Revolution was to eliminate capitalism, in reality, it encouraged and enhanced capitalist world in the West by accidentally warning them about the fear of communism.
Watching Unser täglich Brot, the scene where they feed cattle reminded me the story of Manna in the Old Testament. And, I was wondering if Manna from that lord miracle to human beings and food from the feeding machine to cow mean different or the same.
Then soon after, the thought triggered me to gather Mahna Mahna.
I wouldn’t say that things shown in the film is the result of great consequence of Modernity, (whilst I guess I’m rather a Modernist) as I don’t know the way they feed cattle help human to achieve freedom, but I thought that this thinking process might explain the nature of paradigm shift in history–like modernity to postmodernity, since I had changed my mood instantly in observing modern concept from observing it carefully and pondering over the relating concerns attentively to thinking about and seeking for nonsensical absurdity which links to the original idea merely as an inspiration. Also, I wondered if this kind of nonsensical absurdity is theoretically the real human emancipation which the majority of people want to ignore.
Just a thought.
***
In-class notes:
Did ‘the collapse’ of Grand Narratives of Modern-era highlight crisis of Modernity?
Or was Modernity successful in showing the processes and practices toward the Enlightenment (Progress, Equality, Freedom)?
Modernity seemed to promise:
Progress, Liberation, Equality, Freedom, The new possibilities in Arts, Better reality, the Ultimate goal of Enlightenment, etc.
Postmodernism is the ‘rejection of modernist ideology (=modernisation)’
eg. laughing (seriously) at the failure of modernist architecture. denying the potential of utopia
Postmodernism can be comical:
pastiche, parody, irony, camp n kitsch
Failure of Modern architecture
practical problem with the height: the residents on higher levels can easily get harmed in case of accident such as fire/ elevator is not that good, normally/ those tall buildings block the view of the land and sky from sights/ et cetra et cetra
WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary (1759 – 97) was an English philosopher, journalist, translator, novelist and feminist. She was also a member of a radical group with Paine, Godwin and Fuseli. She is known for her observations on social and political conditions, and for her insisting the importance of education in achieving (gender) equality. Her daughter is Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Her works include Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1972).
BEAUVIOR, Simone de (1908 – 86) was a French philosopher, novelist, author, existentialist and feminist. She studied at the Sorbonne, and her major inspirations were in the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Beauvior, however finds the difference between biological sexes and genders as the social categories has not been mentioned. As a consequence, her writings gained the fame of an early modern feminist thoughts which became very influential. Her works include Le Deuxiéme Sexe (1949, The Second Sex), Les Cérémonies des adieux (1981, Adieux; a Farewell to Sartre), The Mandarins (1954), Mémoires dune jeune fille rangée (1958, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter) and Une more trés douce (1964, A Very Easy Death)
MARX, Karl (1818 – 83) was a scholar, the founder of communism. Born in Trier, he studied law at the university of Bonn, then studied history and philosophy at the University of Berlin. As he joined the Young Hegelian movement whilst studying in Berlin, from 1841, he began working as an editor for the radical liberal newspaper Rheinische Zeitung. The paper was put down in 1843, and he moved to Paris with his bride, where he met Friedrich Engels; then later, he moved to Brussels. In these times, he kept a distance from the Young Hegelians, and worked on studying British political economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and James Mill. This is when he brought about the concept of alienation and that the traditional economy regards inequality as natural fact, etc., as he wrote The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts(1844), The Theses on Feuerbach (1845) and The German Ideology (with Engels, 1845 – 6). As the Revolutions of 1848 arose, he returned to Germany and found the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. He then moved to London after the revolutions and lived there for the rest of his life. Many of his works except for The Communist Manifesto (1848) were unknown for a long time as his philosophical texts had not been published until the 1930s and so forth. His other works include Das Kapital (Capital, 1867) and Grundrisse (1857 – 8)
ALTHUSSER, Louis (1918 – 90) was a French Marxist, a member of French Communist Party from the early 1950s. Along with Lacan and Foucalt, he is often referred as a representative of Structuralism. Whilst Western Marxism has been developing various aspects, he argued that it is necessary to review and focus on the original concepts of Marx, and to re-clarify true Marxism, which, according to Althusser, should not be humanism, but a science of history, as later Marx’s thoughts were more genuine and scientific unlike young Marx who was still under the great influence of Feuerbachian Hegelian movements. Althusser points out that the original concept ideology talks of human nature, explaining that ideology inevitably exists when an individual lives in a society, and criticises theoretical ideologies. His main argument was that it is the conditions of the structure that moves the history and not humanism. Although he was a very influential personality in France especially in 1965-8, his reputation dwindled later and it was even more declined after murdering his wife in 1990. His works include Pour Marx (1965, For Marx), and Lire le Capital (with Baliber, 1965,Reading Capital).
GRAMSCI, Antonio (1891 – 1937) was an Italian Marxist interpreter, known as one of the most important Western Marxists. He used to have leading positions in Italian Communist Party, and was its general secretary. However, he was jailed in 1926 and was kept imprisoned until his death by fascist members. Nevertheless, whilst in prison, he was allowed to receive books and to write. He is especially notable for his interpretation and description of the idea of ideology in the context of the struggles for social change and the theory of hegemony.
FANON, Frantz (1925 – 61) was a French colony Martinique born psychiatrist, whose works had a great influence on black radical movements, colonial theories, and the Third World. After studying medicine and psychiatry in France after the Second World War, Fenon worked as a psychiatrist in colonial Algeria, then he moved to Tunis to work as a journalist whilst continuing the works of psychiatrist. His personal experience that although he had always believed that he was French, he realised that the majority of caucasian French citizen looked down discriminately. His works include Peau noire, masques blancs (1952, Black Skin, White Masks) and Les Damnés de la terre legitimizes (1961, The Wretched of the Earth).
YouTube video clip: Frantz Fanon uploaded by Natturner187
Viewing: Film: Invisible Adversaries -Valie Export, Fanon- Isaac Julien, Hour of the Furnaces
Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas
Timeline
1605- The world’s first newspaper, (published in German- read only)
1780-1830- The Industrial Revolution UK,
1792- Mary Wollstonecraft (writer and philosopher) wrote ‘A Vindication of rights of a woman’ which argued that due to a lack of education women appear to be inferior to men, however this is not the natural order,
1803- introduction of working railways – George & Robert Stephenson – ‘Rocket Steam Engine’ and Richard Trevithick – ‘steam railway locomotive’,
1827- First Photography – Joseph Nicephore Niepise- a french inventor created the first permanent image and developed the first camera,
1839- Daguerre and Talbot announced their dicovery of photography/ scientific revolution,
1847- Karl Marx introduced a theory of ideology- ‘A Sense of False Consciousness’- he spoke about how the rulling class has dominace over the working class, when the working class relises this, they will rise against the ruling class and create communism, where everyone is equal,
1848 – European Revoluton – people were un-happy with the political leadership, and demanded more participation and democracy. This spread quickly through europe and parts of latin america,
1861-65- United states civil war,
1863- All african slaves in america were set free under the Emacipation Proclamation,
1869- Completion of Transcontinentail railroad,
1890- Motion picture project started by Thomas Edison- His staff developed horizontal-feed motion picture camera,
1986 – Silent ceinema screening in Regents Street. Lumiere Brothers,
1900- photographs in newspapers- Half tone and Dot screen tequnique/ Fordism/ Freud,
1908- Picasso – Cubism,
1910- Radio Broardcast Created By Lee De Fores,
1914-1918- Russian Revolution Creation of Soveit Union/ Surrealism- Saussure(Writting on modernism)/Einstien/communism/ WWI,
1918- Women above the age of 30 could vote,
1928- Vladmier Propp – ‘Morphology of the Folk Tale’- Breaks down componets to a plot, to identify the simplest narritve elements/ Vote for Over 18’s- womens right to vote,
1933- The Great Depression,
1935-Mass media, receiving propaganda- Triumph of the Will- Leni Rienfenstahl, it stared Adolf Hitler Birth of Avant- Grade or ‘Vanguard’ Film,
1936- Walter Benjamin- ‘The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction’,
1936-1939- Stalin’s Purges,
1939-1945- WWII- 6 Million Jewish people killed/ Atomic Bomb,
1947 – Adorno & Horkheimer – ‘The Dialectic Of Enlightenment’ – “Who can Write Poetry After Auschwitsz’,
1950-1980- Civil rights movement- Rosa Parks/ Abolishemtn of the Apartheid State,
1960- Television introduced/ Postmodernism/ Pop Art/ Second Wave of Womens Rights,
1967- Frnz Fanon write ‘Black skins and White masks’,
1968- Student Movement in paris/ Roland Bathes semiotics,
1981- Bell Hooks- Black Feminsit- Womans Liberation,
1989- Collapes of the berlin war/ ‘collapes of communism’
1990- Internet -‘Heart of Drakeness: An Interview with Juiette Mitchell’
Now- Post Feminist- Naomi Wolf- ‘The beauty myth’/ ‘When chine rules the world- M.Jacque,
TODOROV, Tzvetan (1939 – ) is a Franco-Bulgarian citizen who is known for French translations of texts related to Russian formalism and the dictionary of linguistic science. He defined genre as a term which defines structure and declares that narratives exist as an essential part for all civilisations. He also emphasises the importance of social interaction as it supports human beings to understand how to care others. Thus, he has influences upon structuralism, poetics and narratology.
PROPP, Vladimir Iakovlevich (1895 – 1970) was a Russian thinker who is known for his analysis on folk tales. His work, Morphology of the Folktale (1928) is often brought out as a representative example of Russian formalism.
RUSSIAN FORMALISM is the formalism originally established upon OPOYAZ (Society for the Study of Poetic Language) and Moscow Linguistic Circle. Its main interest is in poetics, and the study focuses on systematic functions of language like Saussure had a great influence on structuralists for his view on language as a system; for them, the arrangement of structure was the essential element which makes art. As Propp gives the strategic treatise of scriptwriting in Morphology of the Folktale, Russian Formalists emphasises on the structure of story-telling, stating that a story consists of a beginning and an end constructed in a language, and its contents are the meanings talked in the narrative form.
BAKHTIN, Mikhail Mikhaylovich (1895 – 75) was a Russian theorist. Although his works seems to have had a great influence in a part of the twentieth century, due to the loss of his own writings, he is often described as a rather mysterious figure. He criticises formalism for its lack of thoughts about the contents. Historical poetics, the nature of dialogues, and the like, according to Bakhtin, are meaningful in expressing the reality of social actions. His insistence on the effects of verbal expression in everyday life has impact on the discourse analysis.
LUKÁCS, Georg (György, 1885 – 1971) was a Hungarian philosopher, theorist and minister in the Hungarian government in 1919 and in 1956. His Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein in 1923 (History and Class Consciousness) is known as a great contribution to a Marxist theory. He is often described as having Hegelian interpretations. According to Lukacs, Cervantes’s Don Quixote is a good example of novel which shows the typical relationship between the age and its hero. In a novel, the hero happens to be an isolated individual from the world who moves around the world of his time to seek for his real self (like Atman?). In his study for ideology and class, he points out that proletariat is potentially the representative class of history as bourgeoisie class is increasingly becoming alienated from the modern society. His other works include Die Seele und die Formen (1911, The Soul and its Forms) and Theory of the Novel (1920).
BRECHT, Bertolt (1898 – 1956) was a German playwright, dramatist, poet, and producer. He is well known for his theory on Epic theatre and his influences on later performing arts scenes. It is said that he thought himself as a Marxist.
COLLINS, Anthony (1676 – 1729) was an English thinker, is known as an early freethinker or atheist. He criticised churches for its problems with the dogmas.
DIAGESIS & NARRATIVE. Narrative, in a general sense, means a story, and/or a sequence of events described. Diagesis is the term which means ‘narrative’ in Rhetoric in Plato’s sense, and ‘statement’ in Aristotle’s sense. Diagesis explains that the poet narrates a story in his own words but hide his appearance from his audience. This term and idea is used in Narratology. NARRATOLOGY, the (structuralist) study of narrative links to various literate approaches such as Levi-Strauss’s analysis of myths, russian formalists’ analysis on poetics, etc. Gérard Genette used the concept of diagesis to construct grammar and logic of narrative, and which put a hope in narratology.
SURREALISM is a movement in the creative arts which happened in the twentieth century. Surrealism started with a manifest presented by André Breton in 1924. The movement’s main theme is to challenge to conventional understanding and views. As Breton had associated with Dada movement, many members of Dada joined Surrealism, such as Louis Aragon; other notable members are Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Georges Bataille, Antonin Artaud, and Luis Buñuel.
Viewing: Wavelength Michael Snow, Meshes of the Afternoon Maya Deren., Man With A Movie Camera Dziga Vertov Reading: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller Italo Calvino.
CRITICAL THEORY, in a specific sense means a speculative approach of Frankfurt school, especially of Thedore Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jügen Herbermas; it is named by Horkheimer. It is a critique of modern society.
The theorists see that human beings do not live upon logical laws unlike natural science. It seeks radical change in society which liberate individual human beings, by dialectically inspecting and eliminating trick of ideology and by leading people to be able to judge by themselves.
It is originally based on the philosophies of Marx, Hegel; for example, it states that it is necessary that the society becomes classless to achieve the goal. It however does not talk of tasks to be done, as critical theory is to speculate how society can theoretically be freer. In a more general sense, the term can describe a wide range of attempts/non-scientific theories for understanding human society, social action, human sciences, etc. in a critical way.
FRANKFURT SCHOOL is a group of intellectuals including philosophers, sociologists and economists which had a connection with the the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research) in Germany. It was founded in 1923 within he University of Frankfurt in Frankfurt am Main with the support of Felix Weil and the Frankfurt University.
The key individuals of the school are Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin and Jügen Habermas. The institute is known for its approach which is often referred as Critical Theory which shows their own version of Marxism as it had a link with Moscow-based Marx-Engels Institute before-the-war. In 1930, Horkheimer became a Director of the school. Three years after that–in 1933, the power of the Nazi’s Party drove the Institut into exile as its members were consisted of a considerable number of Jewish; therefore they moved to Switzerland and then to the USA to find a new settlement at Columbia University. In 1950, the Institut returned in Germany. In 1958, Adorno was appointed Director.
The school does not belong to any political party, but it was always sympathetic and associated with the ideas of the Left; meanwhile communist parties related philosophies such as Stalinism and so-called institutionalised form of Marxism, Dialectical Materialism were disapproval to the members. Social democratic parties, proletariat and also utopian retionalism were also disapproval. The school stood against the rise of Fascism. The school left major impact on the New Left.
Whilst the traditional thoughts on the Enlightenment project which talk of human’s progress and process toward emancipation as a linear process, insisting that the true liberty can be achieved once certain reason release yuma beings from fallacies and superstitions, the school warned that although reason may free human from superstition, myths and the like, there is a danger that the reason–instrumental reason itself may become a new belief which restricts human beings. Those concerns are seen in Horkheimer and Adorno’s theory, Dialectic of Enlightenment.
The core interest of the school was to free human beings by leading public to be aware of the facts and factors of modern society which sustain human from true freedom and which disrespect personal and cultural true values. Therefore it was critical to positivist and scientific philosophies, pointing out that it loses and limits the interest for incalculable values.
For it tries to control consumers to be obsessed with commodities which are designed for mass consumption, the school condemned what Adorno and Horkheimer named Culture Industry. Chiefly, the term culture industry is addressed to the entertainment industry which produces works designed for mass consumption typified by Hollywood movies and commercial (popular) music. The members of school thought that this culture industry is becoming another tyranny which prevents people from social freedom by blinding them to independent values and prisoning consumers in their market and capitalism.
Nevertheless, some of the school members came to find it hopeless that individuals of the society of today become critical to what encompasses them. Those members are often called as pessimistic members of Frankfurt school.
Eventually, psychoanalysis took a part in characterising the works of the school. With the influence of character analysis by Fromm and Reich, it is thought that there is a hope to demonstrate the path to human liberation, for psychoanalysis would explain phenomenas caused by the characteristics of human personality like Authoritarian Personality which craves for being dictated and thus supports fascism. Also psychoanalysis is said to open people’s critical sights which is blurred by the elements of modern society.
ADORNO, Theodore Wiesengrund (1903-69) was a German sociologist, musicologist, philosopher, critic of contemporary culture, and a leading member of the Frankfurt school. His impact upon critical theory and the school is significant, especially the negative aspect toward communist parties’ falling into the dogmatic ideology. He is the one of pessimistic members who saw no escape from the unfreedom which the modern world holds as a result of Enlightenment project. His works include The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1941), Negative Dialectics (1966), The Authoritarian Personality (1950), and his Collected Works (1970 – 86).
HORKHEIMER, Max (1895 – 1973) was a German philosopher, who was Director of the Institut für Sozialforschung and the leading member of the Frankfurt school. As he is best known for The Dialectic of Enlightenment, he made the outline of the critical theory.
BENJAMIN, Walter (1892 – 1940) was a Jewish-German literary critic, philosopher, and member of the Frankfurt school. His works published in 1955 flourished his fame among German New Left and English-speaking world in 1969 and 1978. His introduction and interpretation of flâneur as the model which represents the nature of modernity and his celebration of surrealists is well-known. It is said that his stance and his association with the Frankfurt school are complicated whilst he is renowned figure for Western Marxism.
Viewing: From Tom and Jerry to Itchy and Scratchy– the analysis of cartoons and capitalist production.
“Cartoons were once exponents of fantasy as opposed to rationalism. They ensured that justice was done to the creatures and objects they electrified, by giving the maimed specimens a second life. [Could this be a reference to the cat’s nine lives in Sylvester the Cat-egorical Imperative?] All they do today is to confirm the victory of technological truth reason over truth. A few years ago they had a consistent plot which only broke up in the final moments in a crazy chase, and thus resembled the old slapstick comedy. Now, however, time relations have shifted. In the very first sequence a motive is stated so that in the course of the action destruction can get to work on it: with the audience in pursuit, the protagonist becomes the worthless object of general violence. The quantity of organized of organized amusement changes into the quality of organized cruelty. The self- electors of the film industry (with whom it enjoys a close relationship) watch over the unfolding of the crime, which is as drawn-out as a hunt. Fun replaces the pleasure which the sight of an embrace would allegedly afford, and postpones satisfaction till the day of the pogrom. In so far as cartoons do any more than accustom the senses to the new tempo, they hammer into every brain the old lesson that continuous friction, the breaking down of all individual resistance, is the condition of life in this society. Donald Duck in the cartoons and the unfortunate in real life get their thrashing so that the audience can learn to take their own punishment.”
***
One day, on my way home from Central London, a guy who was sitting next to me suddenly drew my attention. He looked like an average well-built British guy, and was opening a handy-sized plastic bottle of soda which might taste good and popular as I see the bottle everywhere on this planet. After he took a first sip of the soda, he took out a small bag of potato crisps which is labelled with the popular brand’s name, opened it, and began eating crisps — or just nibbling. As he was just consuming the snack at a slow speed without doing any other actions, not even reading the text on the bag, I wondered what is going on in his inside. Is he having a deep thought, controlling unendurable shock in his mind, or just enjoying the pleasure which the snack gives him? Whilst I was pondering over what I would think when I have a bag of crisps, he sped up eating and finished the bag at last with pouring the last tiny bits by hanging it upside down and tapping the bottom of the bag so that the bits fall into his mouth. Next, he pulled out a chocolate bar, again, of a popular brand from somewhere in his clothes, tore the package and ate, then finished his soda. By this time, I was already feeling pretty much entertained by seeing him performing as a genuine typical common-consumer-in-Britain (to me), and he was good enough to give me another show. As a passenger in front of his seat left the car, he stood up a little, then picked up a newspaper, Metro or Evening Standard and began reading it apparently vaguely. (Apologies if it sounded way too violently discriminative, but I was pleased to see the whole action and himself and throw an invisible applause.)
I wonder if Adorno and Horkheimer see him as a victim of Culture Industry who is unconsciously taken his freedom of choice and chance of enlightenment and threatened by its totalitarianism.
In the lecture, we examined what a newspaper is consist of by ripping off all the advertisements in it, and we saw editorial’s tricks which seem to call subliminal effects of advertisements in the paper by designing layout effectively. If the companies’ earns are increasing from those advertisements, indeed the theory still could explain consumers in capitalism society today.
Nevertheless, I doubt if this theory’s reliablity lasts for another decade, as it seems that the relationship between consumers and industries is changing. For example, we could assume that nowadays, people who choose entertainment without/less advertisement is increasing, as there are numerous ways to avoid watching advertisement to enjoy selected entertainment products. Furthermore, from my experience, I feel that our attitude toward typical advertisements is changing; interestingly, I recently started looking at advertisements as something of nostalgia, but not something I would be related to as a consumer of the products (But note that it happens only when I accidentally happen to see advertisements, as I normally avoid them. I don’t watch YouTube especially when they have ads in the beginning.) And I think that this is happening due to the rise of newer media as Culture Industry became possible because of the new media of Adorno’s era. Therefore, I predict that we will soon have the phase to think of a new version of Dialectic of Enlightenment.
Screening: Modern Times -Charlie Chaplin -to Post Fordism The Shock Doctrine M.Winterbottom/N. Klein
“Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. According to these theorists, a “critical” theory may be distinguished from a “traditional” theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Horkheimer 1982, 244). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the circumstances that enslave human beings, many “critical theories” in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms.”
Session 2 Wed 3 Oct: : The beginning of critical theory: The Frankfurt School,
Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin
“Cartoons were once exponents of fantasy as opposed to rationalism. They ensured that justice was done to the creatures and objects they electrified, by giving the maimed specimens a second life. [Could this be a reference to the cat’s nine lives in Sylvester the Cat-egorical Imperative?] All they do today is to confirm the victory of technological truth reason over truth. A few years ago they had a consistent plot which only broke up in the final moments in a crazy chase, and thus resembled the old slapstick comedy. Now, however, time relations have shifted. In the very first sequence a motive is stated so that in the course of the action destruction can get to work on it: with the audience in pursuit, the protagonist becomes the worthless object of general violence. The quantity of organized of organized amusement changes into the quality of organized cruelty. The self- electors of the film industry (with whom it enjoys a close relationship) watch over the unfolding of the crime, which is as drawn-out as a hunt. Fun replaces the pleasure which the sight of an embrace would allegedly afford, and postpones satisfaction till the day of the pogrom. In so far as cartoons do any more than accustom the senses to the new tempo, they hammer into every brain the old lesson that continuous friction, the breaking down of all individual resistance, is the condition of life in this society. Donald Duck in the cartoons and the unfortunate in real life get their thrashing so that the audience can learn to take their own punishment.”
Adorno/Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment
Viewing: From Tom and Jerry to Itchy and Scratchy- the analysis of cartoons and capitalist production.
Session 3 Wed 10 Oct: Modernist practices: realism and formalist challenges to narrative
Diagesis and narrative, narration, distanciation, surrealism.
Viewing: Wavelength Michael Snow, Meshes of the Afternoon Maya Deren., Man With A Movie Camera Dziga Vertov Reading: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller Italo Calvino.
Session4 Wed 17 Oct: Modern practices: gender, ideology and race
Wollstonecraft, De Bouvoir, Marx, Althusser, Fanon.
Viewing: Film: Invisible Adversaries -Valie Export, Fanon- Isaac Julien, Hour of the Furnaces
Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas
Session5 Wed 24 Oct: Crises of modernity: from progress and liberation to totalitarian prison house.
Lyotard, Jameson, Carey, Gray, Hobsbawm
Viewing: Our Daily Bread Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Session 6Wed 31 Oct: Structuralism, semiotics, poststructuralism and the analysis of meaning.
Saussure, Barthes, Derrida, Kristeva, Williamson. Image as Text: the critique of meta narratives, intertextuality, differance. Viewing: Advertising and subversion of advertising messages, appropriation work.
The gaze, narcissism, voyeurism, advertising, masquerade, identity, ‘the subject’.
Viewing: Tomb Raider/ Cosmetic Surgery Live, Guerilla Girls, Thriller Michael Jackson +look-alikes(Naomi Harris):
Session 9 Wed 28 Nov: The Postmodern Era – fundamental break or just more modern?
Warhol Multiples: The Break with the Modern and The cult of personality-
Ref John A Walker, Gablik, Walter Benjamin, Warhol
Viewing: Brazil-Terry Gilliam, The Day Today- Morris, Ianucci BBC, From Duchamp to Pop Art.-Arte video 93-8
Session 10 Wed 5 Dec: “The End of History” the end of everything
Critical practices in Postmodernism, grand narratives and the era of the postmodern. Figures of the postmodern: irony, pastiche, Fukuyama, Hutcheon, Lyotard, Jameson, Harvey
Viewing: D-i-a-l History –J.Grimonprez –Life of Brian, Monty Python.
MODERNITY is the moment, the historical epoch of modern. As the word ‘modern’ (newness, new, now, etc. in contrast to past, in Latin language) suggests, it signifies the time of shift to new from the old.
With the specific conceptual view of the nineteenth and twentieth century, modernity has a strong link with the hope for Enlightenment project, the master of natural science, the faith in science, urbanisation, anti-traditionalism, industrialisation, mass production, mass culture, progress, improvements of technology, logic/rationality, etc. Thus modernity implies the historical point where a paradigm shift from the past/old to the present/new appears.
MODERNISM is the practices which were made at that time and those which were created after this period with the sense of modernity.
Whilst looking at modernity from the viewpoint of the classic Enlightenment theorists, it is the path to free human beings, other theorists, such as pessimistic members of Frankfurt School see the negative side of this moment. For example, according to Macey, Weber claims that “modernization means the ‘disenchantment of the world’… it also threatens to imprison [unique values] in the ‘iron cage’ of a coldly impersonal rationality” (p. 260), suggesting that rationality of modernity do not liberate human and settle new kinds of limits to human culture.
Nevertheless, the trends of the quest for the new continues among other people, thus, movements like Avand-gardes, and other varieties of modernisms, which encouraged impressionism, futurism, surrealism were born and expressed.
POSTMODERNITY usually refers to the period after modernity which began after the World War Second. In a broader sense, as the prefix post- suggests, it indicates phase of reaction to modernity and modernism. Therefore, postmodern often represents rejection of modernity and refusal to continuation of modernism.
POSTMODERNISM, the term is ascribed to various activities associated with this postmodernity period. Having experienced and encountered with the failure and powers of new inventions, new problems, new social structures during the wars, it is said that it was needed to set a postmodernity as a action against modernity. Also, when it means the time after the wars, postmodernism often associates with the denial of whole Enlightenment project. As this idea that postmodernism is the revenge against the failed promises of modernity, suggests, postmodernism is often described with the words which are opposite to modernism such as deconstruction, dystopia, bleak, and outlook. It also has the sense of a celebration of parody, irony, and playfulness.
Session 1 Wed 26 Sept: Introduction:
The reading list. David Macey Dictionary of Critical Theory Penguin 2000
The relation of theory to practice. The purpose of the lectures, weekly seminar write up requirements.
Lecture; Modernity/ism and postmodernity/ism definitions.
Screening: Modern Times -Charlie Chaplin -to Post Fordism The Shock Doctrine M.Winterbottom/N. Klein
In Modern Times Chaplin shows exaggerated modernity; in The Shock Doctrine, Klein unveils the world after modernity as postmodernist represents reaction against modernism.
“Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. According to these theorists, a “critical” theory may be distinguished from a “traditional” theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Horkheimer 1982, 244). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the circumstances that enslave human beings, many “critical theories” in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms.”
On this theme, I realised that one thing that I need to clarify every time when I discuss the issues of Modernism and Postmodernism is that they are just the names of certain time/era, not about philosophy, concept, genre, and the like. Therefore they are about chronological/historical issue. On thinking about the characteristics of the two eras, I also found another definition of modernism and postmodernism (solely for my personal use as a reminder); which is that Modernism is Renaissance and Postmodernism is Baroque.
Both modernism/modernity and postmodernism/postmodernity cover visual arts and literature, but the features of the eras is most apparent in architecture, in my opinion, as the culture is heavily influenced by the development and improvement of technology in these times, especially for modernism, and architecture shows designs for practical use for lifestyle.
Also, ‘Modern/Postmodern-ity‘ usually denote points of history, that is, periods, and ‘Modern/Postmodern-ism‘ are the products appeared in those times.
Products
Some practices of modernism and postmodernism are meant to show the motivation of those times. For example, movements such as Russian formalism (pp. 336 – 337) has notable activities of modernism.
Propp’s work on morphology of folktale is a treatise about handling narrative/script writing. It declares that every story consists of the beginning and the end which are constructed in language and that the contents is the narrative talks of these beginning and ending; thus a writing can be stylised.
As for visual references, I’d like to have images of architecture to grasp the vision of modernism and postmodernism. Personally, I found it difficult to tell the difference between modernism and postmodernism architecture, however, some modern architecture at least seem clear.
2MED521 Modernism and Postmodernism 