Post Modern City: Las Vegas

The above picture taken from http://www.photos4travel.com/las-vegas/las-vegas-night.jpg shows Las Vegas at night. The image shows a replica of the Eiffel Tower and shows Las Vegas as a themed city and also represents nostalgia. Las Vegas presents itself as a Post modern city through its use of many other themed environments including Eve Quillin - disney world theme, Caesar's Palace - Roman themed and Mandalay Bay - Southeast Asia themed.

These themed environments include hotels, restaurants, bars and shops. Las Vegas uses theming as signs to represent itself and create a world your inside that is familiar. This leads to stereotyping and expectations. Las Vegas displays borrowed aspects of particular cultures in order to simulate the culture and appeal to the population, due to the demand of nostalgia for cultural signs . These simulations however are not always culturally accurate.

This world of simulation leads to a lack of authenticity where what people are seeing is not actually real and the memorabilia is not authentic. Las Vegas portrays a weak hyper-reality where people are aware of the difference between the real and the fake (due to the situation of replica iconic buildings not in their original countries of origin) and choose to accept it. This aspect of postmodernity can cause some concern where people are arguably perhaps no longer open to new cultural ideas.

Se7en - Car Scene - Justification of Sins

David Finchers 1995 film Se7en provides a narrative based around the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, lust, envy, wrath, pride and sloth. The scene I have chosen is from the height of the film where the character John Doe, played by Kevin Spacey, is providing his explanation as to why he has commited the murders surround the seven deadly sins. His rationale for doing so is a reaction towards those in society who he believes are unpure. Although his methods are flawed due to the fact you cannot murder someone because you don't agree with their behaviour, to him his actions are justified and a consequence of a post modern society which John Doe is very judgemental towards and craves to change and improve.

Se7en raises many concerns regarding the city and society. Arguably however the way in which the city is portrayed is in accurate of a post modern city. It shows the city in a negative way with constant imagery of a wet and dreary place to be and portrays it as a permanent dystopia. Society is shown to be very disconnected, a consequence John Doe believes to be of this post modern world.

Los Angeles - Shopping Mall

Los Angeles has 86 languages spoken in the schools, 13 major ethnic groups, and 140 incorporated cities across the county. Then, Charles Jencks expresses Angelenos as "heterophiliacs" to explain how much Los Angeles symbolises American postmodern city. Los Angeles is a part of a broader and more complex global restructuring of urban cities and metropolitan life.

Many scholars note that Los Angeles has a possibility to be utopia more than other adjacent cities. The existence of shopping malls can be one of remarkable examples of Los Angeles’ utopia. The image above is Beverly Center Mall which is located at the edge of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. This mall contains 160 boutiques and restaurants and 13 film theatres, and the Rooftop Terrace showcases panoramic views stretching from downtown Los Angeles to the famous Hollywood sign. Beverly Center provides its customers hyperreal vastness of artificial wonder and disneyfied sublimity, therefore it can become themed space which is separated from real outside. At the same time, this separation from outside makes a kind of another world in Los Angeles. This phenomenon links to the erasure of space because the interior is the place of postmodernist perfection where technology allows us to exist in an atmosphere of purified air, perfect temperature, and steel and glass armour plating. Contrary to the separation from real world, the structure of architecture is the seamless flows of space in such shopping malls or domestic interiors. This loss of experience of real world prompts people to gain information of the rest space of Los Angeles through TV or other mediums. Therefore, shopping malls like Beverly Center expand interiorisation.

SEVEN

I believe that David Fincher's Seven explores anumber of different key themes of post modernism.

There is the sense in Seven of  Fabulation or magical realism as popularised by Robert Scholes. The unnamed location of where the film takes place is in fact made up of several cities parts of LA and New York and therefore reflects the constructedness of society. With the sense that Seven explores a world of texts and the self reflexitivity shown on these observes that it is a police film with somerset making observation on the life of the police. 

We also have a sense of fragmentation within the film in relation to the loss of a grand narrative which JOhn Doe in a sense is trying to reinstate with his crimes. Also Mills and Somersets journey throughout the various landscapes of the city suggests there is a fragmented sprawl of desert and buildings suggestting no organised pattern.  The city also with its constant rain suggests a bleak outlook for the future of society

Somerset within Seven represents the nostalgia for society of the past as his dress is 1940s in style whilst Mills is shown to represent contemporary society with his more modern look. This nostalgia and recylcing of the past is also evident in the overall look of the film which derives from film noir of the 1940s perhaps arguing that that was a time of order and a society with a  narrative that was whole.

Las Vegas - A Postmodern City

Las Vegas is the opposite of many American cities which conform in uniformed space where all the Cities look the same, subsisting in a hyperreality in which nothing is real, or has any attachment to the once existed. Las Vegas represents a themed space and Baudrilliard theory of Simulations and Signs. Within Las Vegas there is no originality, everything is a copy of a copy. Walking down the main strip of Las Vegas affectively you could visit Paris where there is the Eiffel tower which is half the size of the original; this is just one example of a simulation represented in this themed urban space. Las Vegas if often portrayed as an Adults Disney Land which is an escape from reality. Thus, everything in Las Vegas exists as a simulation of a reality that is in fact not real. This then demonstrates the simulacrum of society through the false portrayals of Americanism that Las Vegas proudly displays. Its casinos are built in themes that themselves do not exist in the real, they are instead hollow buildings that give a false identity within a false reality. Las Vegas strip is surrounded by a sprawl that reinstates the post modern character of the City. Looking at all of this reinforces the idea as Las Vegas being a contemporary post modern city within America which could interestingly be compared to the city of Los Angeles.

Here is a good website with an interesting view of Las Vegas being postmodern: its called 'Las Vegas: Postmodern City of Casinos and simulations.'

http://www.transparencynow.com/vegas.htm

The sprawl of Los Angeles

The image given here clearly represents the sprawling nature of Los Angeles as a post-modern city. Los Angeles is often regarded as the model for the post-modern city, as it envelops each aspect of defining the post-modern city. The first aspect, that of fragmentation and decentralisation, is echoed in LA through the lack of a centre that is evident in other modern cities such as New York. The fact that LA is a culmination of the merging of many towns and cities eradicates the possibility for a centre. Whereas New York is able to claim cultural centres such as Times Square and economically through Wall Street, Los Angeles does not present this same sense of centre. Perhaps the most prominent feature of LA is the area of Hollywood and its supposed centrality for the film industry, but the area of Hollywood itself does not contain more than one studio, henceforth creating an illusion of centrality.

The planned nature of New York is a stark comparison to the 'unplanned' layout of Los Angeles, a city that spreads across the surrounding landscape in any direction. In this way, Los Angeles can be seen to parallel Las Vegas. Whereas New York builds up, Los Angeles builds outwards, shown through the use of skyscrapers in New York, and increasing small town areas around the outskirts of Los Angeles.

The lack of street life in Los Angeles is another defining characteristic. It is more common to drive around the city of Los Angeles - evident in the use of highways and freeways intersecting the city - than it is to walk, and the constant use of technology as a means of less human interaction is a defining aspect of the post-modern city.

The sprawling landscape of Los Angeles is another defining aspect of the post-modern city. The city and its centre, such as high streets, are replaced by strip malls and expansive housing developments, and which leads on to the idea of themed space and the idea that all cities look the same. As previously stated, Los Angeles and Las Vegas bear similarities in their layout, and Las Vegas is seen as the epitome of a themed space. This individuality of Las Vegas is interestingly becoming imitated by other areas of modern cities however, such as Times Square in New York.

Las Vegas - Freemont Street Experience

Freemont Street is an interesting example of Las Vegas as the Post Modern city as it embodies numerous characteristics such as the flattening of space and a themed environment. 

 

Firstly Freemont Street the original strip is now separate from the main part only accessible by car from the well known casinos and therefore a prime example of the erasure of space. Freemont Street through being represented on television invokes nostalgia for James Bond and gambling through is original neon lights. Now as the strip continuously changes appearance through casinos being remodelled, the reused lights on freemont street invoke the original image of Las Vegas. As various images of Vegas would have you believe the Strip and Freemont are not connected but give the appearance through the architecture of buildings being the same, a classic example of the flattening of space as argued by Edward Soja . Soja's analysis relates to the edge city or the exopolis which one could argue with its nostalgic neon lights and growing light show Freemont street is becoming the exopolis of the strip. Freemont strip has almost broken free from the strip with having its own centre of business ( casinos) which do not detract from that available of the strip. Las Vegas as a whole is clearly a fragmented sprawl and if Freemont street continues to grow so does the fact that Las Vegas has no real centre.

 

For those more knowledgable freemont street is different from the strip but to the naked eye like all themed cities freemont street looks exactly the rest of Las Vegas in particular the strip.  Full of signs and simulations it is ‘hyperreal’, and in particular attempts to suggests that one is visiting the real original Las Vegas, but this is only implied from the recycling of the original neon casino lights.

 

Interestingly Las Vegas despite being overtly postmodern through the casino it attempts to combat the death of the city as a meaningful centre, as a place of pleasure, opportunity, culture and economic value. However as with the rest of Las Vegas it only combats this on the surface and simply simulates culture through imitation of other cities (mini Eiffel tower, empire state building) and billboards of winners that one can have pleasure but it is valid only for the duration of their short stay and is not available on a permanent basis.

Los Angeles' Freeways

This image depicts what Michael Dear and Steven Flusty refer to as the one of the only ‘common narrative(s)’ of Los Angeles; the freeways. Rayner Banham also commented on the freeways of Los Angeles, stating that ‘the freeway system in its totality is now a single comprehensible place, a coherent state of mind, a complete way of life’. The freeways of the city act as connectors, linking one side of the endless city to the other.

These freeways indicate the postmodern qualities that Los Angeles possesses. Firstly they aid the fragmentation of the community, creating segmentation and isolation. This isolation of postmodern communities is shown by a city such as Los Angeles; affluence and poverty are able to exist almost side by side, the only barrier being the freeways. The decentralisation of Los Angeles is exacerbated by the existence of the freeways; the dominance of cars and mobility is aided by the freeways, helping to create a culture of technology where intimacy is unnecessary. ‘Community’ is a notion that is scarce within postmodern cities; the street is now insignificant in light of the rise of the freeways and the automobile, personal communication is now almost obsolete due to the telephone and the modem.

The landscape of Los Angeles is a complete overhaul of the modernity of cities such as New York and Philadelphia with their city centres, their shops, and their sense of community. The sprawl of Los Angeles, intersected by freeways and boulevards, is a perfect example of a postmodern city; decentralised, fragmented, a simulacrum.

Las Vegas's main strip

This panorama is of Las Vegas’s main strip this image was taken from a website which seeks to advertise the city as “SIn CIty”. This image is a fine example of a themed city, Vegas also displays the death of the grand narrative and cultural fragmentation in a physical manifestation with its uncoordinated urban sprawl, although the main strip is meant to be in a way a centre, the way in which it is organised, is Indicative that ita a decentralised and fragmented urban space which displays an absence of the organic apart from a few trees poking through the concrete jungle which gives the indication of the death of the city as a meaningful centre.

The image conforms to Ralph's postmodern townscape in that the image shows textured facades that allow pedestrians to move freely, in the foreground of the picture a car park and walkways can clearly be depicted where both the road and the pedestrian intersect, also fitting Ralph's description is that the Postmodern displays stylishness which accentuates affluence and fashionability. The colourful allure of the lights displayed on the buildings support this assessment.

This also shows Hyperreality the culture of simulation where people prefer the vivid decorated exterior of the Las Vegas buildings in contrast with other cities like New York which displays a more modernist construction design. The variation in the colour and the shapes of the buildings demonstrate Exteriorisation which “express the self, either through architecture as a display of identity” moreover it represents individual aspirations in what can be achieved through architectural commerce which could draw the comparison to the “city as a theme park”. The billboards and automobiles make up a glamorous simulation with the neon colours light contrasting well with the night sky. “theme parks as places of simulation without end, charac¬terized by aspatiality plus technological and. physical surveillance and control.” The casinos in the picture would have their own security forces in order to protect their profit-making margins which would enforce their economic control.

The majority of the casinos, night clubs and hotels are located along the main strip this can be seen in the panorama all display a themed urban space, the monuments in Las Vegas such as a building shaped like the Eiffel Tower which displays nostalgia, can be observed in the picture is a pastiche (blank parody) which in addition shows Intertextuality between various world wide cities including New York’s Times Square suggesting that originality has been usurped. This panorama shows clearly thatLas Vegas is a Postmodern city through its use of simulation and its multitude of themed environments.

Las Vegas as the Postmodern City

Eve Quillin penned the notion of Las Vegas existing as an ‘…adult Disneyland’ within which the simularcrum of society transports each individual into a world built upon hyperreality, containing no fixed identity or relationship to the ‘real world.’ Instead, the material and the interpretation of the city are pure images reflective of the stereotyped utopian view of American sentiments and perceptions. This postmodern interplay interjects itself into the constant imagery of iconicism that itself is a copy of a copy of a copy. That is, the projected displays of American acknowledgement in Las Vegas exist as mere polythene metaphors of the country’s ideals and not its reality. However, Mike Greenberg contests this concept, stating instead that, ‘you can't go to Disneyland because you're already there’ . Thus, postmodernity has created its own narrative by which America believes it should live, when paradoxically, by conforming to postmodernism, the country is forming a displacement and falsehood that devotes itself to a simulacrum. That is, America is Disneyland as it conforms to a make-believe narrative that creates sprawled metaplaces, personified by Las Vegas. As exemplified by Matt Gottdiener, the ‘casino themes…include detailed reproductions and simulations…reinforcing a fantasy environment for visitors.’ Thus, in postmodernity, as literary illustrated by the staging of Las Vegas’ ‘reality’, those who gamble buy into the utopian façade as well as the table. In turn, the environment is simulated to achieve as much economic gain as possible, whereupon actions of a visitor are made to seem alike the city, that is, unreal.

The hotel and casino Excalibur exemplifies postmodernity and the effect of the simulacrum inherently. Through simply examining the structure and grandeur of the building, notions of child-like dreams and fantastical explorations enter the consciousness to form a fairy-tale ‘reality’. However, the postmodern paradox reigns when peeling back the façade to reveal cardboard and foam, materials that turn the fantasy into a stark reality of the falsehoods of the American city’s construction.

Postmodernism in David Fincher’s Seven

I was unable to find a different clip to those which have already been posted, so I thought it would be more interesting to consider some of the postmodernist traits that are obvious within Seven rather than repeating points that have already been made about the clips.

One postmodernist issue that I feel is contemplated within Seven is the Lyotard’s belief in the end of the grand narrative. The society portrayed in the film is one of fragmentation and immorality where the truth has disappeared. Whilst there is no argument that John Doe is a criminally insane serial killer, his actions answer those of the society in which he exists; he acts to rid the city of those who he believes employ low morals, to clean up society.

This feeling of an imperfect society is also an example of retro and nostalgia; John Doe yearns for a better society, a past society. Doe echoes postmodernism by perhaps looking backwards to a better past which he intends to recreate through his murderous actions.

The idea of simulation is also an interesting one to consider within Seven. Whilst this may not be such an obvious example, it is an underlying tone that runs throughout the film. The city in which the text is set is not an original; it is a mixture of old style Northern cities such as New York and Chicago, rainy and bleak. This fictitious setting is a work of imagination, but also a copy of certain places which already exist. This setting also represents the death of reality; the rain of the city is replaced by desert in the dénouement, a situation that just couldn’t exist in reality. Whilst this fabricated situation could never truly happen, within the film it takes on a reality of itself. The bleakness of the action is mirrored by the two extreme weather conditions that are presented in the film, and the rain and the desert somehow make sense within the text, and on first watching I found that I didn’t even notice this juxtaposition. It was only in later viewings that I picked up on the inconsistency.

Seven as a postmodernist text is an interesting one to consider. It employs many postmodernist themes in order to project the society in which the narrative takes place. The narrative reflects a postmodern society, and the dangers that can be present within a society such as this. It highlights the negative aspects of certain elements of postmodernity, and through its bleak imagery and narrative portrays a society which, in reality, is no longer a society. It highlights the dangers of the fragmentation of contemporary culture, and how this fracturing of society can result in dislocation, distrust, and, in this instance, tragedy.

John Doe's Apartment

The serial killer’s John Doe's apartment is a key scene in director David Fincher’s film Seven (1995) because it includes clues which could be use to determine the serial killer's identity. Doe lives in a dilapidated building which looks like it could have emanated in an earlier era such as the detective narratives which the film pays homage to. The film uses composite scenery from different eras such as detective and the film Noir narratives from the 1930s to 1940s with the old books, black-and-white photographs and dark environments (which are present in David Fincher's other films) with the comparatively modern work tools and electric lights within the apartment which the gives the place a timeless feel.

Religious iconography can be observed throughout Doe’s apartment which has a large neon cross that suggests that John Doe is devoutly religious and that it might provides motivation for his crimes. Because of belief in the grand narrative of the Christian faith are the sets of beliefs in which Doe subscribes specifically relating to morality. Because the Christian narrative has been neglected in the film's universe which leads to Doe’s belief that the world has fallen into sin and the murders are Doe’s way of punishing those who have committed the seven deadly sins, which is an attempt to re-establish moral order in the way.

The clue for this are signified by the books which are strewn about throughout the apartment that include works of literature which have influenced Does murders such as Paradise lost and the writings of Thomas Aquinas which lays out the definitions of the seven deadly sins this is nostalgia for the past and the suggestion of Fabulation which suggests reality is derived from its textual representations. This acknowledges the “fact that the film is a text, not a reality”. The apartment has multiple locks on the door and blacked out windows is a physical manifestation of the personality traits of the serial killer including his obsessive and meticulous nature and also paranoia of a he world he can not control due to cultural schizophrenia. Coupled with this “he apartment contains no fingerprints”

For the start of the scene starts from 7.00 in first clip and ends with 4.00 in the second

John Doe in Seven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY

The clip I chose is the opening scene of Se7en. This opening scene shows John Doe’s daily life. In a dim and closed room, he is exfoliating fingertips, reading books or taking notes. There are also many barbarous pictures of human and a press clipping of the word, ‘GOD.’ By seeing Doe’s daily life, this scene let audience think about what environment created such the serial killer.

“John Doe” is used as a generic name of average citizen or of people who do not want to reveal the real name. In the case of Se7en’s John Doe, he does not display a doorplate at the entrance of his apartment and often exfoliates fingertips to avoid extraction of his fingerprints. In other words, he has tried to erase all of his background which proves his existence. This shows the modern fear of anonymity and namelessness which encourages antisocial behavior. John Doe is very type who is influenced by this urbanism.

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment, a main character has super egoism that the geniuses have the special right to exceed a law of the world and they are permitted to kill a useless human being. This idea is created by biased sense of justice and baseless almighty which modern people who withdraw into themselves have. John Doe’s theory also sounds apparently correct opinion, however he also has such strong egocentrism and his ‘judgement’ is not ‘agape.’ When urban people dissociate themselves from others and bloat egocentrism in solitude, enthusiasm against others slowly ebbs away and they do not mind others’ pain at last. Where John Doe can manifest his inner side is just in thousands of notes. He is a symbol of not aberration but generality created in urban environment where postmodern characters appear plainly. Se7en depicts such the postmodern tendency of urban society through John Doe.

The film Se7en deals with post-modernism in a fascinating manner through the complex character of John Doe and his exertion of his power through his murders. The scene chosen is from the car ride out to the desert at the climax of the film, with John Doe giving his reasoning for the murders he has committed. In one way it can be seen that John Doe is rebelling against the capitalist society placed in front of him, in turn trying to create his own form of reality in a sadistic manner, an example of trying to break from the death of originality - John Doe trying to create his own form of society by doing something that hasn't been done before. He attempts to justify his killings in claiming that society is so warped and destroyed in terms of moral values that he was in fact doing the detectives a favour:-

"...and after him I picked the lawyer, and you both must have secretly been thanking me for that one..."

John Doe's opposition to society is only cemented further in his increasing disregard and hatred for a post-modern society, a society that has lost all meaning. This can be seen as an example of the death of individuality, an example of 'corporatisation that turns people into lifeless yes-men (or women)', especially apparent in the lawyer who "dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he had", suggesting a loss of meaning.

Brad Pitt's character makes the interesting point of referring to Doe as a 'movie of the week', claiming he is 'no messiah', suggesting the notion that these ideas have perhaps been tried before and will be tried again, or simply just reflecting everybody else's views of their own society.

Seven – (1995) Directed by David Fincher

This film is a clear example of media representing postmodernism. ‘Seven’ is based on the early educational Christianity and the seven sins;
1- Gluttony
2- Greed
3- Sloth
4- Envy
5- Wrath
6- Pride
7- Lust
These sins are not specifically in the bible but were in the teachings of Christianity, it was taught for the failings of a man’s tendency to sin. Another way of looking at it is the un written rules of society and being a good Christian. This film could be seen as the modern interpretation of modern Christian teachings. For my example the ‘Sloth’ the third deadly sin will be discussed.
When the detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) enter the room of where the ‘Sloth’ (a male victim) has been tied up to his bed for a year to the day; there are car air fresheners hanging around the room, which is interesting as in society you can hide a bad smell, although the smell is still going to be there showing it is simply a commodity hiding it. Suggesting things happen every day but are hidden within society. This scene also suggests the theory of Generation X and slackers is a big issue in America and it is a sin to conform in that way. With the note next to the sloth bed ‘you got what you deserved’ also suggest that Slackers in society although they think they are being individual and not living in reality. This scene suggests in their real world is not acceptable. The film confirms this when the victim is severally brain dead and almost certainly will die. This suggests that slackers in society are all brain dead and don’t have a life or live in the real world therefore are all like the victim without having the crime committed towards them. This is a completely different representation from a film that involves slackers such as Jay and Silent Bob as it has a pastiche element to it, never the less this scene and film raises issues of individuals and their behaviour within society, how they are not conforming and how their actions affect society.

Se7en and Postmodernism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOSsUF0WARM
07:40-11:00

The above chosen clip highlights what I believe to be the most imperative and defining aspect of postmodernism; that of Jameson’s ideology of the death of individuality as a result of constant commodification of imagery. Thus, as a consequence, the self is restricted to existing as a mere copy of a corporatised copy, in which autonomy is measured through the success of commodities rather than authentic self-hood.

My scene selection from Se7en exemplifies this notion of pre-judgment in a postmodern society through John Doe’s reasoning behind his murders. He stated that his killings were a result of the sinful society in which we inhabit, thus in turn; each sin acts as a portrayal of each cornerstone of postmodern civilization – creating a crumbling social foundation. The first was a representation of ‘greed’, ‘“An obese man, a disgusting man who could barely stand up”’ in correlation to the lawyer who, ‘“…dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets.”’Thus, both men exhibit a personification of two aspects of modern society, which, according to Doe were ruining the authenticity and nature of civilization. This aspect is furthered when he explains why he killed the model; a depiction of ‘pride’, ‘“[she was] a woman, so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside”. Therefore, the model acts as a perfect exemplification of postmodernism – she became so obsessed with her self-image that she chose death over a life in which she would be othered as a result of her appearance. The death of the prostitute therefore, acts as another representation of a world of desire and falsity, in which even the act of sexual intercourse has to be simulated. The real has died to make way for the simulacrum.

The notion of imagery triumphing reality can be further addressed when noting Detective David Mills’ response to Doe’s accusation of a sinful society, he stated, “You’re no messiah, you’re a movie of the week, you’re a fucking t-shirt at best”. The analogy of a t-shirt therefore, directly correlates to the notion of sign value and the thought of Doe as a pure image, something to be worn and then discarded. This aspect of postmodernism prevails throughout the film, using signs and images to provoke a new outlook on society. Doe’s murders therefore, use postmodernism as a device to relate the imagery of the murders with the seven sins. Postmodernism becomes personified.

Cults: People's Temple

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/

The website I found introduces the event caused by a cult in 1978. The cult, People’s Temple historically is said to have become the first cause that cults begin to be regarded as eccentric religions.

This cult was founded by Jim Jones in 1963. Originally, it was the group as a sect of Christianity in Indiana, but grew rapidly as an antisocial religious cult. Jones organized self-sufficient community in Jonestown of South America / Guyana, but, on November 18, 1978, 914 members including Jones committed mass suicide and more than 300 of those were murdered.

This insane mass suicide is often regarded as ‘excessive solidarity’ by the analysis of psychiatrist. There is the fact that some members refused the suicide, but most of them chose ‘death with Jones’. Even if he was mad obviously, the members could not find other choice him in real society except following. In other words, this suicide might happen by ‘death of individuality’ which is regarded as a postmodern social feature.

Then, the reason why so many people have been fascinated with Jim Jones is also important. People’s Temple was extremely affected by the era of civil rights movement. Jones advocated "desegregation,” had adopted a Korean and a black child, and supplied welfare service for the lower class people of the city, therefore he had authority more than a political force. In other words, he was the voice of wrath of then people who lived in suffering, therefore it means not that People’s Temple gathered members but that people required such the religion. Cults always reflect the needs of people of the time.

DYLAN AVERY’S LOOSE CHANGE

Avery, D. Loose Change. Retrieved 19^th March 2008 From: http://www.loosechange911.com/

Loose Change was a documentary film released in 2005 by Dylan Avery. Part of the 9/11 Truth Movement, the film asserts how the cause of 9/11 is not down to that Al’qaeda but in fact was conducted in part by the United States Government. The 3^rd version of Loose Change was released in 2007 and although some footage has changed the message remains the same. The website Loosechange911.com provides a forum for those who question the official report of the 9/11 commission and support the arguments made in the Loose Change documentary.

 Full of lots of 9/11 imagery, Loose Change incourages the reader to delve into the website through a blog. The blog functions as a means to bring the consumer into the ‘Loose Change’ world containing text and images as well as up to date news of the latest project from the creators of Loose Change. This functions as a way of signalling to the consumer that although the first Loose Change was released four years ago its fight to ‘ask questions, demand answers,’is far from over. However this blog is not the offical one, the official blog is hosted through Google’s blog spot, which embodies an amateur design and has not been updated since April 2008. This is possibly due to the fact that Quantcast reports 91% of people frequenting the site as beings passers by.[1] Therefore most visitors are unlikely to delve deep into the site’s content, thus focusing current news on the home page they maximise their efforts in keeping users informed.The Quantcast report also estimates just over an average of 10,000 hits a month to the site from US citizens. Quantcast describes the demographic as 55% male, 75% Caucasian and less affluent.[1] The high figure in hits suggests why Loose Change perhaps went from being free to view via the website and Google video to the 3^rd and final cut edition costing $19.95 to purchase.  With other commodities available through the website, Loose Change is a clear example how modern conspiracy theories are used by some not simply for a quest for truth but as way to make money and that perhaps some answers are only available to those willing to spend money in obtaining them. 

Loosechange9/11.com is successful example of the vast audience modern technology enables people to reach. It aptly demonstrates how the internet allows the individual to make their opinion known and in turn can connect with like minded individuals. Created by three 20 something males, on a budget of $2,000, Loosechange911.com embodies the possibilities, opportunities and careers that the development of the internet has created for conspiracists in the year 2009. 

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[1] Quantcast. ‘LooseChange9/11’. Quantcast Audience pole. Retrieved 19^th January 2008 From: http://www.quantcast.com/loosechange911.com#summary

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[1] Quantcast. ‘LooseChange9/11’. Quantcast Audience pole. Retrieved 19^th January 2008 From: http://www.quantcast.com/loosechange911.com#summary

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Church of Bible Understanding

http://obadiah1317.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/stewart-traill-and-the-church-of-bible-understanding-by-ave-hurley-part-one/

http://obadiah1317.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/stewart-trill-and-the-church-of-bible-understanding-by-ave-hurley-part-two/

Church of Bible Understanding (which was originally named the Forever Family) is a conservative evangelical cult which was founded in 1971 by a son of a Presbyterian minister Stewart Traill. He has been described by former members as a narcissistic and manipulative leader. The cult recruits vulnerable youths and homeless people by playing on their vices such as drugs and alcohol. They are forced to live in squalid communes across America especially within the vicinity of New York which are similar to other communes that were associated with the 1960s counterculture.

The cult is insular and distrustful of the modern world because their beliefs “espouse a return to a primitive "New Testament" brand of Christianity” which is an example of a simulacrum (a copy without an original) because they have no way of verifying how Christianity was practised in the first century. “The ground narrative of religious and philosophical tradition was replaced by a personalised narratives of exploration and expression”. Church of Bible Understanding is one such an example of the ground narrative of established religion being replaced by a dispersed array of smaller sects, however the group is trying to re-establish a grand narrative in terms of religious moral order. The group conforms to the ideal of a counterculture in the way it wants to change Society, however only within the confines of the cult.

Although the group developed out of cultural fragmentation which America underwent during the 1960s and 1970s the group still employs repressive strategies in order to keep the group members in line through a rigidly enforced hierarchy which is controlled from the top down by Traill. Former members have detailed how they were kept in order by “harsh criticism, shame, and public humiliation.” Traill uses his church members like drones who work menial cleaning jobs.

In order to avoid paying taxes an estimated 90% of the member’s income is reimbursed the back into the church and directly into Traills pockets. The death of individuality can be described as the fate of the group members because they are being used by an unscrupulous group leader who is willing to use followers as slave labour for the means of financial gain.

African American Conspiracy Theories

In recent years, and in particular since the rise of Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, conspiracy theories have risen in prominence within the African American communities, with the language of conspiracy being used as a means to draw attention to the institutional racism that is present within America. Whereas conspiracy theories such as those concerned with events such as the assassination of President Kennedy base their arguments on historical and scientific evidence, African American conspiracies rely on what Peter Knight refers to in his text Conspiracy Cultures as the ‘authority of experience’. The black community’s ongoing narrative of racial injustice and legitimate violence, such as the Jim Crow laws and the atrocities carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, has led to a continuing and irreversible feeling of fragmentation and isolation within American society, resulting in the formation of conspiracies as a way to explain and understand the treatment that they have suffered. Since black communities can no longer be legally ghettoised, rumours have begun to circulate that white society has now turned to other more devious and underhand methods of keeping African Americans displaced, such as the intentional introduction of crack cocaine into their communities, the infection of the ghettoes with viruses such as AIDS, and the deliberate destruction of the levees during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

This conspiratorial rhetoric has been born out of a culture of dislocation and lack of belonging to which African Americans have been subject to since the time of chattel slavery, an atrocity that dominated over two centuries of American history and, even after the passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865 overturning the legality of slavery, has continued to resonate for African Americans, even in the face of revolutionary actions such as those taken during the Civil Rights Movement. Issues such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where hundreds of African American males were led to believe they were being treated for the disease when in fact they were left untreated, even after a cure had been discovered, have encouraged the permeation of conspiracy theories throughout the African American communities, and have led to conspiratorial rhetoric becoming their natural response to other incidents, such as the theories that pervaded black thought during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The echoes of actual examples of purposeful action taken against African Americans by the white mainstream, such as the enforced segregation of the black community, have led to a belief that anything is possible and anything can be true when considering the treatment of blacks within America; the visions of racial equality and justice that were prevalent during the 1960s have been shattered by the continuing maltreatment that the black community is subjected to, and recent examples such as the chaotic and derisory federal response to Hurricane Katrina have generated even more conspiratorial thought, drawn from the histories of slavery and Tuskegee in order to rationalise the neglect that the poor and the black communities of New Orleans suffered.

It is arguable that the conspiratorial rhetoric that arose during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is an understandable response due to the African American community’s narrative of racial discrimination at the hands of white America. There is a belief within the community that the levees which failed under the weight of Katrina were, in fact, deliberately destroyed in an attempt to flush out the poor, and predominately black, community from the ghettos of the city. Many believe that they heard an explosion when the levees were breached and, due to the treatment of blacks prior to the onslaught of the hurricane, are of the opinion that the levees were bombed by any number of organisations, including the Army Corp of Engineers, secret government agents, the Klan, FEMA operatives, corporate real estate interests, or by many other unnamed forces . Others believe that the levees were intentionally poorly built so as not to withstand the strength of a hurricane such as Katrina. Theories such as these are the result of events such as Tuskegee, and the general oppression that African Americans have been forced to undergo at the hands of white mainstream society. Spike Lee, through interviews with victims of Katrina in his 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts , explores the conspiratorial rhetoric that surrounded the event; Lee’s documentary does little to diffuse the rumours and has arguably been instrumental in the furthering of the conspiracy theories. Many interviewees believe that the aim of the plot was to rid New Orleans of the poor black communities and protect the white, upper income areas from flooding. Whilst there is no evidential proof that anything but the pure strength of the hurricane destroyed the levees, the conspiracy has gained its own force, with many, including Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, publicly backing the claims. This belief in conspiracy, even when there is no real evidence to support the claims, highlights the lack of trust that the African American communities place in their government; due to the treatment they had experienced prior to the hurricane, their instinctive response was to lay blame in the hands of American authority.

Cult culture: Scientology

The ‘cult’ I have chosen to look at is that of Scientology. The website I found is clearly a biased site, seeking to provide negative descriptions of Scientology and to try and push their views upon the reader. Scientology is an interesting article, as the definition of it can vary upon where you are based. For instance, within the United States it is seen as a legitimate ‘church’ movement, whereas outside of their borders, notably in mainland Europe, it is recognised as a cult. The movement has garnered much attention, more often negative than positive, since its creation in the 1950s. One of the main issues people have with Scientology is taken from a quotation made by the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, in the late 1940s:

“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”

So it has become that many critics have said Hubbard created the movement of Scientology to simply make money, and their views that it is a ‘confused concoction of crackpot, dangerously applied psychotherapy…’ seem only to be magnified by some of the apparent ‘truths’ of the movement, such as stories of human kind’s development from aliens (perhaps interesting to note Hubbard was a science-fiction novelist before his conception of Scientology). In terms of relating to the death of the grand narrative, this movement could be seen to be an example of Lyotard’s argument that, in the post-modern era, “Enlightenment grand narratives become impossibly contradictory because they begin to endorse beliefs and practices that are in opposition to their founding principle.” In this case, Scientology could be seen to be a ‘little narrative’, along with other alternative or revived forms of spiritual belief, such as Paganism, Wicca and New Age mysticism. It could also be said that Scientology plays upon the individual’s ideal to distance itself from the norm and accept a new form of reality, which is perhaps why it has proved successful, or at least well known through the celebrity status is has been opened to, through advertisement by well known Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise.

Cult culture

For this post I have chosen not to focus solely on one cult but to look at the cult culture as a whole. The ebsite I found is http://www.cultinformation.org.uk/faq.html
This website provides the answers to some question that I myself had wanted to have answered. This information provided makes you realise that cults are purely set up for a select few peoples personal gain and those who become entrenched within the rules and the beliefs of the cult are in danger of losing their individuality and in some cases their lives. You only have to read the quote half way down th page from an ex member of The People's Temple quote to have this proven. She speaks of how the leaders of the quote were kind and charming and that the ideology that they sold to you seemed too good to be true, yet you fall for it anyway and before it you have given up your education and your future. This comment is later followed with the information that the ex cult member who said these things was found murdered. Antoher interesting piece to this ebsite is the description of ll the cult methods to make people subversive to their ideologies. Cults are very powerful groups which are particularly prominent in America. However not all cults are 'evil'. The Church of the Latter Day Saints is a cult. However cults i is generally accepted are set up as a means for people to preach what they believe and this i generally counter productive.

Conspiracy Theory Website

http://www.ctka.net/home.html

The Citizens for Truth About the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA) website was created in response to a conference that its publishers attended in 1993 entitled the Chicago Midwest Symposium on Assassinations. Those who were present decided to create a political action group in response, which, in their words, would ‘…urge the executive branch of …government to re-open the unsolved assassinations of the 1960s-i.e…President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King’ . The site therefore proclaims its information as the political truth, with direct opposition to American governmental arguments centering upon the hiding of records from public knowledge. CTKA asserts a debunking of assassination myths and falsehoods, announcing themselves as ‘activists’ who seek to lobby for, as they state, ‘…full disclosure of all records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy’ . The range of information therefore is extensive in relation to the Kennedy assassination, and at a lesser extent, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.
Yet, the organisation claims that all of their information is more reliable than that of the government’s, using bias assimilation as a method of proving their ‘reliability’. As a result of the postmodern culture in which we live however, there becomes a realisation of Jean-Francois Lyotard’s concept of the death of grand narratives, in which knowledge no longer pertains the truth. Thus, when referring to websites that claim to offer authenticity of opinion, the reader must retain some notions of suspicion. This conception particularly applies to conspiracy websites which, although declare a presentation of ‘facts’ along with ‘evidence’ of governmental deceits and inconsistencies, provide no real basis to express other opinions or outside views. As a result, the websites become an airing of bias which aims to debunk the government and not the conspiracies.

Postmodern Litereture

1. http://temple-news.com/2008/03/24/postmodern-literature-with-heart-and-humor/
The website I chose is an article interprets ‘reality and dream’ in Steven Millhauser’s writing as one of the features of American postmodernist literature through his latest novel, Dangerous Laughter (2008). Millhauser thinks people can be divided into two groups; wakers and dreamers. These two types of characters often come into his fictions. According to the writer’s opinion of this article, “today, all too many of us have become wakers, stumbling through life with our imaginations kept tied up on a short leash.” This literary feature has a possibility to be included in the theory by Jean Baudrillard as ‘simulation and the death of reality’ as postmodernism. Millhauser blears the border of reality and fantasy and in reverse shows what the reality is.

2.Steven Millhauser
Millhauser was born on August 3, 1943, in New York City. His first novel, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer, 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright, was published in 1972. Millhauser became a Visiting Associate Professor in English at Williams College in 1986. A few years later, he became an Associate Professor at Skidmore College in New York, and he has been Professor of English there since 1992. He has won several awards for his fiction, including a Pulitzer Prize for his novel, Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1996).
His novels are written by visionary, aesthetic and romantic writing style which is very rare in contemporary America. In addition, fluid prose, the utilization of detail and vivid imagery, and the imaginative nature of his work are also his feature.
In The Interview with Steven Millhauser by Marc Chénetier, Millhauser shows his view about the contrast between imagination and reality through his fictions; “…dream and imagination are methods of investigating the nature of things, they are precise instruments for exploring reality.” In the other words, he is investigating ‘reality’ through his imaginative fictions in postmodern world because he thinks these two existences can be seen by each other’s existence.

Conspiracy Theory Website

The Illuminati are a secret society with the intention of expanding control and enforcing New World Order. They want to control the world and their grand plan is world domination. The meaning behind their name the 'Illuminati' is The Enlightened Ones and 1% of the US population are believed to be members. The Illuminati are thought to be very powerful and destructive, research conducted by Jim Marrs insights that their founding concept was the destruction of organised religion and government anarchy. Author Gaylon Ross however disagrees proclaiming they started with good intentions, to correct the areas of society they believed to be flawed, unfortunately the plan failed and things began to go wrong. Marrs goes on to say that he believes the Illuminati have infiltrated all governments and societies, believing they have been responsible for the financing of wars since the 1800s and the funding of Hitler.

It is believed by many that their are symbols (satanic signs) of the Illuminati surrounding us everywhere, which are believed to bring power. These signs including the 'owl' building in Austin, Texas which is a sign of worship; named Moleck after a Middle Eastern God, signifies wisdom and can see in the dark unlike its prey, and can rotate its head to see all, adds to the speculation that important political figures have been involved in the Illuminati. Although there is little evidence to support this, it is simply speculation.

The following website is an account by a 45 year old woman who was a mind "programmer" for the cult until 1996. She was the sixth head trainer in the San Diego branch and had 30 trainers reporting to her. She describes the Illuminati as a 'sadistic Satanic cult led by the richest and most powerful people in the world. It is largely homosexual and pedophile, practices animal sacrifice and ritual murder. It works "hand in glove" with the CIA and Freemasonry.' She believes the 'cult' to control the worlds drug trafficking, gun distribution, pornography and prostitution. She also believes they may be responsible for political assassination, and terrorism including September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Maryland sniper and the Bali bomb blast.
http://www.rense.com/general30/illuminatidefector.htm

Aids Conspiracy in America

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2005/ConspiracyBeliefsMayBeHinderingHIVPreventionAmongAfricanAmericans.aspx

This web site was created by Charles Dervarics, Dervarics is a freelance writer who specialises in Education, health and employment issues. Dervarics is based in Alexandria, Virginia. This website uses many facts and statistics to argue that Black African Americans feel that HIV is a conspiracy and the American Government plays a considerable role in the creation of this disease and is preventing the cure to be given to Americans particularly Black African Americans.

Throughout the website Dervarics refers to other critics to discuss their view on the conspiracy theories hindering HIV Prevention among African Americans. Thorburn describes this conspiracy as dangerous due to ‘These beliefs are potential barriers to Aids prevention.’ The research shows that African American males who agree there is a conspiracy with HIV in America view condoms negatively therefore unlikely to wear them; thus potentially spreading or catching the virus. Comparing this view to the table of results from a phone survey of five hundred randomly selected African Americans aged between fifteen to forty-five Thorburn theories was proven correct. Black African Males are more likely to believe in this conspiracy than Black African females. The statistics that are given are interesting and informative. Dervarics claims that fifty-three percent of all African Americans from the phone survey feel that there is a cure for Aids and that it is being kept from the poor by the American Government. Forty-eight percent from the same survey believe that HIV is a man made virus.

Turner describes aids as ‘Tailor Made’ for conspiracy theories. Turner argues that if there is no conspiracy regarding Aids then why have most deadly diseases been around for so many years and then suddenly Aids is around and fatal. Turner also argues that the health inequalities African Americans have faced since slavery it is understandable why this conspiracy theory is so popular. Furthering Turners argument she refers to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 1932-1972 where the federal government admitted to withholding the cure from many poor African Americans as they wanted to see the affects of syphilis in the long term.

Aids throughout America is a massive issue but is also used as parody in films such as ‘Team America.’
This youtube clip represents how the Aids conspiracy is represented through the media. using Puppets; looking closely you can see the strings which are used to move them, making serious issues into a joke and something the audience are encouraged to laugh at.

Postmodern Literature and the Joseph Heller connection

The website http://www.esoteric-sensationalism.com/userguide.html describes Postmodernist literature as a movement which arose after World War II which is described as being a counter reaction to the modernist movement, such as the convention of the single narrative. Death of the author considered a postmodern term “which originated with literary critic Roland Barthes”. It suggests the author’s work is not as important as the interpretation given to it by the reader suggesting that the postmodern text is interpreted in every reading. It continues by stating “By blatantly reusing existing texts as fodder in the meat grinder of her own postmodern writing process, Acker became the first mashup dub DJ of the literary world.” This suggests that Intertextuality to its logical extreme is plagiarism.

The site makes a clear distinction between what it believes postmodernism to be and what it is not. Experimentalism alone does not constitutes postmodernism and suggests writers who get into the mindset of their characters in a "Stream of Consciousness" style is not postmodern.



Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was born in New York to a Jewish family and is considered to be an early postmodernist writer. The style he used was dark comedy and satire which was used for purposes of parody. In his early career he wrote stories for such magazine as “Atlantic Monthly and Esquire” His Magnum Opus was Catch-22 (1961) which is also a term in the book which describes a no-win situation which was based around the World War II setting of airman’s trying to dodge combat missions partially based on Heller’s own experiences. The book is presented in a “non-chronological, fragmented narrative underlines the surreal experience of the characters and the contrast between real life and illogicalities of war.” This suggests the death of the grand narrative such as the ideological constructs that were exhibited during World War II and Cold War in favour of multiple conflicting narratives such as pacifist ideals were exhibited in the anti-Vietnam war movement that Heller was a part of. Other novels included Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984), Picture This (1988), Closing Time (1994).

Postmodernist Literature and Authors

http://www.textetc.com/modernist/postmodernism.html

Text Etc is a website which deals with many structures of literature, with a focus on poetry. The site includes a brief history of postmodernism within literature and poetry, describing this form as one where the author focuses on ‘free-wheeling creations constructed of a language that largely points to itself’. The site outlines what it believes to be the main four elements of postmodernist literature, iconoclasm, groundless, formlessness, and populism. The four terms are explained in detail, outlining the history and features of each:

Iconoclasm: decanonizes cultural standards, denies authority to the author, contradicts the expected, and denounces ethnic, gender and cultural repression

Groundless: employs flat, media-like images that have no reference beyond themselves, regards both art and life as fictions, and argues that meaning is indeterminate, denying a final or preferred interpretation

Formlessness: fragments texts, turning them into collages or montages, avoids the shaping power of metaphor and other literary tropes, mixes genres with pastiche, travesty and cliché

Populism: employs material from a wide social spectrum, eschews elitist, literary language, and avoids the serious and responsible, promoting the arbitrary and playful

There is a list of postmodernist poets, such as John Ashbury, Susan Howe, and Kenneth Goldsmith, and also an extensive list of references and resources for further research. This website is quite basic, but is a good place to start when trying to understand the terminology of postmodernist literature. It is also interactive; there are links to pages which teach you to create your own postmodernist poem, making this difficult topic more accessible and entertaining.


Kathy Acker (1947-1997) was an American experimental novelist, postmodernist, and sexpositive feminist writer. She was known in the literary field for creating a new style of feminist prose, exposing a misogynistic capitalist society which employs sexual domination as a key form of oppression. In the face of criticism for her chosen, and frequently taboo, topics, Acker argued that in order to challenge the accepted male driven power structures of language, literature must explore silenced subjects that had been previously marginalised.

‘Literature is that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified’

Through the use of performative prose to initiate political and aesthetic discourses, Acker’s narrative methods work perfectly within postmodern feminism. Her fiction imitates consumer dynamics within its own narrative cycles. Within her chosen social context she discusses the fragments of an information age, forcing associations between materials from many different backgrounds. Her texts are hybrid, part narrative, part essay, performing a critical simulation of literary moments by placing them alongside what has been traditionally passed over by the literary. Ambiguous boundaries are prevalent within feminist theory, and her investigation of difference works within both poststructural theory and postmodern feminism.

Some of her novels include The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula: Some Lives of Murderesses (1973), I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining (1974), Blood and Guts in High School (1984), and Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream (1986).

Kitsch - ugly? or cool?

As an aspect of postmodernity, I chose the term, Kitsch. Kitsch can be found in technically developed contemporary artworks or mass-produced merchandises. As referred in Glossary of Postmodern Terms, Kitsch can be defined by the specific scenario, ‘it’s good because it’s bad’. If the product is just trashy, there is no necessity that it is called Kitsch. When it is very trashy, therefore attracted and has unique presence, it is Kitsch. In addition, Kitsch includes the element, ‘recycling the past’ at the same time.
The product in the picture above was named the Kevin Cuckoo Clock and released by Melbourne-based design team Gin & Tonic (Georgie and Tom Campbell). The Kevin looks like a traditional Black Forest cuckoo clock which firstly created between 1740 and 1750 in Germany, except it's painted electric pink and its pine cone pendulum is made of plastic.
This clock looks not only ugly but artistic because it can fuse tradition and trashy elements as Kitsch. And also, this product can be defined as ‘the death of originality’ by being based on the existent element. Other designer Koen De Winter explains one of the original characteristics of kitsch; "I guess what makes kitsch now more acceptable is . . . a certain level of humor. So to me, cool-kitsch would have one or more extra dimensions beyond tasteless or ugly”. Unexpected and unthinkable combination engenders freshness and humor. To be usual means the lack of aesthetic value as Kitsch in postmodernity.

Post-modernist Fiction

http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/movement?id=469

The website I’ve chosen to look at deals with attempting to provide an analysis on a history of arts and culture, and in this case looks to provide one definition and attempted understanding at Post-modern fiction. It addresses the timeframe for post-modernism from the mid 1960’s to modern day, and details the emergence of post-modern fiction. The argument made is that authors use a vast number of methods – “typically including bricolage, pastiche, fabulation and metafiction” – to ‘convey the complex absurdity of contemporary life.’ Emphasis is drawn on the ‘lack of the grand narrative’, an issue raised by Lyotard and key to post-modernism and its constraints. The article describes the boundaries, or lack of, for post-modernist authors, in the ability to write about hyperreality; the fact that they are not contained by reality, that in a sense they can write their own sense of reality without argument as its feasibility cannot really be argued against.

Italo Calvino

Calvino, born in 1923, was an Italian author of short stories and novels, as well as a journalist. He was born in Cuba, but returned to Italy shortly after his birth. Many short stories are quoted as his best works, including the ‘Our Ancestors’ trilogy and ‘Cosmicomics’ collection of short stories. By the time of his death in 1985, he was listed as the most translated contemporary Italian writer. His style was described in a number of ways; not easily defined, ranging from the style of fantastical fairy tales to more serious and ‘realistic’ styles. In terms of being addressed as post-modernist, Calvino described his style as trying to ‘remove weight’ – “I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.” This can be seen to relate to the notion of removing boundaries from writing in a post-modern fashion.

Post modern fiction

1) I have chosen to look at the Post Modernist text Fight Club for this blog and more specifically how it deals with the 'crisis' that males in NOrth Merica are suffering in the modern day. http://www.jademyst.com/essays/11.html displays an article which focus's on this topic in great detail. A basic over view of the site gives the impression that ever since the strong feminist movements of the 1950's and 1960's there have been new generations of men since that feel under valued and useless in the modern day America. Hogan says 'Fight Club speaks to listless and directionless young men in a calculated attempt to shock and disturb them from their slow mundane deaths that pass for existance, and it speaks to and shocks women in an attempt to wake them up to the way the change in society is damaging and killing their sons, husbands and brothers.' So from this quote we can see that in some postmodernist fiction the main topic or focus is that of the masculine self and the role in which men play in modern society.

2) Thomas Pynchon.
Thomas Pynchon was born in New York in 1937. He is a widely respected and highly regarded postmodernist fictional writer. He gained an English degree from Cornell. He began writing short texts however he started to write his fictional novels from the late 1950's and early 1960's. His most famous works are V (1963) The Crying Lot 49 (1966) Gravitys rainbow (1973) Vineland (1990) Mason & Dixon (1997) and against the day (2006). He has won the national book award and has been cited many times as a contemder for the Nobel prize for literature. He has written novels focusing on many fields including science, mathematics and history.

Postmodern American Fiction

1.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_2_44/ai_53260178

Rather than being a site as a whole that deals with postmodern fiction i have included a link to the essay by Kimberly Chabot Davis  on which i quote from below and in my section on Toni Morrison. The essay is entitled "Postmodern blackness": Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' and the end of history. This essay is more specific with the  postmodern issues of Beloved but as the majority of us have all studied this novel i felt that the postmodern devices that Davis suggests occurs within Beloved would make it easier to comprehend Postmodern Fiction and its issues. This essay suggests that key features of postmodernism within Beloved is postmodern history as 'Morrison's treatment of history bears some similarity to Hutcheon's postmodern historiographic metafiction,'despite Morrison attempting to write black topic texts. An interesting argument of Davies is that 'Andreas Huyssen, Kobena Mercer, and Linda Hutcheon have noted, racial liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s (as well as the feminist movement) contributed to the loosening of cultural boundaries that is seen as characteristically postmodern.' to contest claims that 'the lives of black people have nothing to do with postmodernism'. I found this essay an interesting intterogation of Beloved as a postmodern text as Beloved is considered postmodern and anti-postmodern with aptly demonstrates the complexity of determining whether a text is or is not postmodern. Also as this essay gave examples of postmodern devices within fiction in a novel i had studied i found it made it clearer to comprehand these devices and realise other works of fiction that have used them as well.

2. Toni Morrison

Born in 1931 in Ohio Morrison's original name was Chloe Anthony Wofford. Morrison has also worked as an editor for Random House, a critic, and given numerous public lectures, specializing in African-American literature. She won the nobel prize for literature in 1993. One of her most notable works of fiction is 'Beloved' (1987) in which she uses devices such as fictionality history, the blurring of past and present, and the questions the grand historical metanarratives according to an essay by Kimberly Chabot Davis. Davis believes Beloved is an example of postmodern blackness and is a hybrid of the vision of history and time that brings new light onto issues that Fredric Jameson and Linda Hutcheson on their own theories of postmodernism that are mentioned above. 

Postmodernist American Fiction

1. http://www.cinestatic.com/trans-mat/fisher/FC4s3.htm

Flatline Constructs; Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction. By Mark Fisher

My chosen Website discusses Baudrillard’s obsessively repeated claims about “the end of the Real” it looks at how often it has invited misinterpretation – and derision, particularly from critics such as Douglas Kellner who was an early theorist in media and culture in general. When looking at postmodern literature Baudrillard considers whether or not it is theoretical and looks at the biological and social aspects. Baudrillard claims,
‘If cybernetic culture demands that the theoretical, the biological and the social be thought together, it is because it places everything under the sign of the fictional (which automatically and immediately changes the status of “fiction”).’
Fisher discusses how Baudrillard views ‘reality’ as occupying a tendency to become ‘fiction’ and the tendency of ‘fiction’ to become ‘reality’.
This site is good to look at, especially for comparison with other theorist and their views of postmodern writing and the main features of it.


2. Kathy Acker



Acker was born into a Jewish family April 1947 and died November 1997. She was a feminist who took a lot of inspiration from pornography and was very interested in postmodernism. Acker was known as one of the best experimental writers of her generation. She also wrote poems and plays. Acker also took a great interest in the punk movement in the 1970’s and 1980’s, she was seen as rebellious character but never the less a very talented author.
Acker wrote many books and novels, such as Blood and Guts in High School, ( 1984).
The plot is a ten year old girl called Janey Smith, who lived in Mexico with her father who she had a sexual relationship with, afterwards, her father met a woman. Janey moved to America where she got addicted to sex at a young age and then joined a gang called the Scorpians. Eventually Janey got captured by a Persian slave trader who locks Janey up and uses her for prostitution. Janey is set free and soon finds out she has cancer. Janey then meets the love of her life Jean Genet who was a French writer; they then travel around North Africa together. They break up and shortly after, Janey dies.
This is a clear example of postmodernism literature and puts Baudrillard’s view of reality becoming fiction and fiction becoming reality into practice. This story line also depicts Acker postmodernist view and teachings, with sex being used as a metaphor for the destruction society can cause.

http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer/_SPEED_/1.1/acker.html
http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/a/acker21.htm

Fight Club

Fight Club is a critical account of consumerism, yet paradoxically, as soon as it left the cinema it became commodification as DVDs and memorabilia. This lies in accordance to Jameson’s views on postmodernism, entailing the collapse of high culture into popular or mass culture and the entry of popular culture into high culture.

Fight Club presents many forms of postmodernism throughout the film which was directed by David Fincher in 1999 and the novel by Chuck Palahniuk in 1996. Baudrillard discusses simulation and everything being a copy of a copy, which is represented in Fight Club by characters having a mundane, regimented life and not resisting it. The men therefore release their social aggression at Fight Clubs; the men's only exclusive club. It can also be discussed that this text contains pastiche as the fight scenes are not taken seriously and looked upon as the norm and as entertainment rather than violent and unnecessary.

Baudrillard Sign Values is where Baudrillard states that ‘things’ are brought for there sign value rather than there ‘use’ value. People are not buying a product they are buying a brand. Ikea is portrayed as this brand and is portrayed significantly through out the text.

In Poz Hulls article he describes ‘In Fight Club unnamed narrator Norton eventually discovers Brad Pitt is a fragment of his own imagination and that he himself is the anti-capitalist guerrilla Tyler Durden.’ Another interesting this Hulls mentions is that ‘Rather like the first rule of fight club, The first rule about of twists in cinemas is that you don't talk about the twist.’ This is interesting as Fight Club became commodification by leaving the cinema but an unwritten rule is you don't tell people the twist of a film. Fight Club is a very clever text and is an excellent example of postmodernism.



Links that are worth a look at:
http://www.talkingpix.xo.uk/article_twists.html
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1152/pg1/index.html

Postmodern Fiction

1) My chosen site

The above chosen site exemplifies literary postmodern tendencies through the Norton Anthology outlook. Thus, its content predominantly centres upon the interpretation of postmodernism as understood by the compilation editors; Paula Geyh, Fred G. Leebron and Andrew Levy. In the introduction to their site they state the format of the anthology, noting that the ‘…section headings reflect six of the most significant trends that define the history and development of postmodern fiction in America since 1955’, that is ‘Breaking the Frame," "Fact Meets Fiction," "Popular Culture and High Culture Collide," "Revising Tradition," "Revisiting History," and "Technoculture."’ Thus, the text and therefore the site, concur that postmodernism can be sub-divided into six prominent categories which aim to highlight the difficulty of its definition, and thus the variety of its interpretation. This notion is re-instilled when considering that the Anthology features sixty-eight authors, each of which illustrate a variety of postmodern styles and narrative. The text’s inclusion of a variety of Postmodernist authors therefore, employs for a range of postmodern elucidation to occur that allows the reader to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the fictional postmodern discourse.

This knowledge is then furthered through the visuals offered by the site, which include a postmodern fiction timeline that illustrates different historical events and their postmodern effects. This as a consequence allows for a simplified understanding of the postmodern era and its relation to the historical past. In addition it pertains the main features of postmodern fiction through the notification of the literary responses to timed occurrences, from the cloning of sheep in 1997, to the dropping of atomic bombs in 1945.

It can be seen therefore that the site offers a range of postmodern fiction interpretation and details the events that lead to postmodernism entering the literary vein. As a result, postmodernism can be better understood in fictional terms, detailing its discourses and constructions.

2) Joanna Russ


As a connection from the above text, my chosen postmodernist fiction author is one that features in the Norton Anthology. Joanna Russ (b.1937), as stated by NNDB, was a ‘…major part of the feminist wave that swept science fiction in the 1970s’, thus her texts simulate the female disaffection felt throughout the post-war period, using postmodernism as her medium. Russ’ most successful book, The Female Man centers, as detailed by scifi.com, ‘…four women from alternative Earths that each have very different relations between the sexes’ . Thus, they each attempt to combat the gender stereotype of women as the inferior sex, using self-hood and the discovery of autonomy to propel their sexuality and thus control over the males in society. Russ’ feminist notions therefore, use postmodernism as a literary tool of escapism from gender conformity, creating new discourses that enlighten and stimulate the feminist movement.

Her work is a concentration upon the saliency of women and and their social roles, creating fantastical and futuristic worlds in which her gender ideals are placed. This however unfortuntely includes the disapperance or killing of men, highlighting both the social displacement felt by Russ, and also a justification of her lesbianism.

It can be seen therefore that postmodern fiction can be used as a literary tool to reveal disaffection felt by society through the author. The discourses it offers pivot on the concepts of escapism, yet also reflects Jameson's notion of the death of individuality, and therefore the displacement of society.