A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the PresentThe concepts of modernity and modernism are amongst the most controversial and vigorously debated in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory. In this new intervention, Fredric Jameson--perhaps the most influential and persuasive theorist of postmodernity--excavates and explores these notions in a fresh and illuminating manner. The extraordinary revival of discussions of modernity, as well as of new theories of artistic modernism, demands attention in its own right. It seems clear that the (provisional) disappearance of alternatives to capitalism plays its part in the universal attempt to revive 'modernity' as a social ideal. Yet the paradoxes of the concept illustrate its legitimate history and suggest some rules for avoiding its misuse as well. In this major new interpretation of the problematic, Jameson concludes that both concepts are tainted, but nonetheless yield clues as to the nature of the phenomena they purported to theorize. His judicious and vigilant probing of both terms--which can probably not be banished at this late date--helps us clarify our present political and artistic situations. |
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absolute aesthetic affirm allegory already Anthony Giddens artistic becomes beginning Blanchot bourgeois break called capitalism characterized classical cogito concept of modernity consciousness constitute construction culture Deleuze depersonalization Descartes dialectical differentiation dynamic emergence existence existential fact Foucault Frankfurt School fundamental G.W.F. Hegel gesture grasped Heidegger Heidegger's historical historicism Ibid identified ideology of modernism innovation invention kind language late modernism late modernist later linguistic literary literature logic Luhmann's Marxism meaning mode of production modernité moments movement namely narrative Nietzsche notion object older ontology paradoxes past period philosophical poetic poetry political position postmodern poststructur poststructuralist precisely present problem purely question radical reading realism reality reflexivity reification representation rewriting rhetoric seems sense situation slogan social specific structure suggests T.S. Eliot technological temporality thematics theory of modernity thing tion tradition transformation transition trope trope of modernity Utopian various Walter Benjamin word
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Page 233 - In the world of the symbol it would be possible for the image to coincide with the substance, since the substance and its representation do not differ in their being but only in their extension: they are part and whole of the same set of categories. Their relationship is one of simultaneity, which, in truth, is spatial in kind, and in which the intervention of time is merely a matter of contingency, whereas, in the world of allegory, time is the originary constitutive category.