dear dennis and richard
thanks for your further posts; Richard has expressed eloquently the
historiographical case on "struggle" and so forth, to which I cannot
usefully add anything. But what I can say is that I think both of you
have rather odd ideas of what constitutes "postmodernism", or perhaps a
rather odd *experience* of postmodernism. I'm not going to go into grand
lecture mode here, but one thing sticks out, particularly from Dennis'
post - the idea that postmodernism is all about pointing out "bias"
[and, by implication, claiming the moral highground]. I really don't
think that this is the case; a notion of "bias" implies the possibility
of reading "through" or "behind" that bias to something "purer", or
reading the source solely as a critique of the "bias" [note - i'm not
saying that people don't do this kind of reading; i'm claiming that
"postmodernist" or "Poststructuralist" is not a good description of those
kind of reading, even if the people who produced them think that it is
{which is a very snotty thing to say, i know, but anyway ...}]
To see the case against "bias" argued more cogently than I can supply
here, see Keith Jenkins *On What is History? From Carr and Elton to
Rorty and White* (Routledge, 1995)
And the question of "project" is also important; to be frank, i rather
like a bit of "cultural terrorism" [nice phrase, Richard]. And to see
the case argued for *that*, see Michael Berube [accents on the e's]
*Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics* (Verso,
1994) [nb - probably the funniest book written by an academic, ever]
sorry this is brief, but the two of you have explored the areas in great
detail; this is just a footnote!
cheers
john arnold
Centre for Medieval Studies
Kings Manor
Exhibition Square
York YO1 2EP
ENGLAND
(01904) 433948
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