In some discussions, I've made claims that pomo is far from accepted in all academic circles, and in fact may be nearing the end of its run in serious literary criticism (witness Camille Paglia's retrocritical Break, Blow, Burn staring at me from my bedside table). In aid of this assertion, I found this, which may or may not prove my point. I mention this because last night I began the narration of the Caveman lecture series, which included introductory remarks on the issue that I am not talking specifically about philosophy, because to understand postmodern philosophy one must first understand, well, everything from Plato up through Hegel, and me, well, I get caught on Pseudolus and all those other hifalutin Greeks, so don't look to me for any of that stuff. I'm looking more at things people already have under their belt (like Picasso paintings with the eyes all on one side of the head or Disney World). Anyhow, what I was looking for was one of those fun lists of papers presented at the annual MLA meetings, The Hermeneutics of Reistic Confluence in the Aleatory Texts of "Family Circus" -- Billy's Rememb'ries Deconstructed or something like that. I guess I'll just have to wait a while.
I finally passed out from exhaustion last night while reading the TOC thread on POX. Somebody at around post 4592 had just suggested that anyone with two years of high school French would have no problem reading Foucault. Sacre bleu, says I to myself, and my tete hit the floor before moi knew what was happening. I woke up supine (hint -- the up in supine tells you where you're looking if you need a mnemonic to differentiate between this and the prone alternative), with both Pip and TK licking my face, and my golf clubs beckoning from the corner to just let it all go for a couple of months. If it were only that easy. I mean, it's easy not reading POX; I do that all the time. But debate is somehow in my blood. Or dans le sang, as the second-year Frenchies say. (I knew I should have taken Russian in high school. Nobody ever suggests you read any Russian philosophers. Finally, a country safe from both the Enlightment and Postmodernism. Where's my passport?)
Meanwhile, on the listening front, I've added IN COLD BLOOD to the audiobooks list over on the right. This is one great book, and the reading of it here is extraordinary. I usually use audiobooks as a way to keep up with contemporary stuff that is patently unusable in my day job, or to absorb some nonfiction during the down time of driving, although as you know I love podcasts, which are perfect for drive-time (with enough variety for matching the moment, if you know what I mean). But this one, which I merely intended to brief myself on a book that I had never particularly been interested in reading and to warm myself up for the Capote film, captivated me from the getgo. Now I really want to see Capote. This is a strong recommend.
A second strong recommend is a book-on-paper (that's the old-fashioned kind) that I'm almost finished with, which I've also added to the list, Delirious New York by Rem Koolhas. In essence, this is an attempt to understand why Manhattan is the way it is, urban development by a Monday-morning architect. It's a lot of other things too. If you have any interest in why New York looks the way it looks, this is essential reading. The Flatiron Building, for instance, is of no architectural interest because it merely reproduces the earth. That is, the building wasn't built in that shape for some artistic/design/structural reason, it's just that the land happens to be shaped like that. So, the building goes up, floor after floor, in the shape of the land: the earth reproduced. There's also discussion of towers as symbols, the creation of the Manhattan grid (2038 blocks), the full-block building, the lobotomy of interior and exterior (the downtown athletic club with its golf course on the 7th floor, for instance), the 1916 zoning law that defined the NYC skyscraper, the Ferriss drawings (which I've always loved) which are boilerplates for urban buildings in the context of that law (and who knew the original paintings were so large?). Coney Island. Skyscrapers (before they were a reality) consisting of floors resembling a suburban landscape with a little yard and fence and a house, one to a floor. Of course, the grid rules Manhattan. Anyone who actually studied urban issues for Jan-Feb and enjoyed the material will love this book. The grid, like any rule, imposes limits, but it may be a corollary of limits that they engender the most creativity. That's a subject for deeper analysis, but in any case, I love this book, and if it's up your alley, you will too. (Oh, yeah. As I said, Koolhas is an architect himself. Very cool. Lots of wacky contemporary ideas. Pomo? Find out for yourself.)
3 comments:
The audiobook suggestion was great: it's one of my favorite books, and from what I can tell so far, you're right on about the quality of the reading.
I had two years of French in high school and I can read the Foucault lectures (i.e. what the original post specified) without a problem. I end up looking up 2 - 3 words per page in a dictionary. Reading Foucault's literary criticism (in journals in the 50s and 60s) is rather difficult in comparison. If you really want to test this out, try "La Naissance de la Biopolitique" or any of the other lecture books that cover topics in political theory. They read like political science articles, and not like normal "I write run-on sentences whenever I want" Foucault.
[Granted, this is far easier for me because I know Spanish fluently.]
And your comment on Russian philosophers: there are several factors that have limited the penetration of Eastern European philosophy into the United States, including the language barrier and the rather small volume of translations that trickle in each year. Because of historical and cultural reasons, most of the exposure in the West to Eastern European philosophy occurs in France (where Eastern European intellectuals have been hiding out since the end of the 18th century). I'd wager that even in American university libraries, you'll find huge volumes of work on Russian philosophy in French before you find them in English.
This omission of Eastern European authors is particularly glaring among analytic philosophers, who have a lot to gain from reading the Czech and Polish schools of analytic philosophy, which were active during the inter-war period. These schools were started by students of the Vienna Circle philosophers, and the primary objectives of the Czech and Polish schools was to correct the problems with logical empiricism and positivism and reform philosophy--something which only happens 30-40 years later in Angloamerican philosophy.
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