Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the term used to refer to the non-realist and non-traditional literature and art of the post-Second World War period. Literature and art during this period took certain modernist characteristics to an extreme limit. The term is also used to refer to the general human condition in the “late capitalist” world of the post 1950s.
The term postmodernism was first used emphatically in the 1960s by critics such as Leslie Fielder and Ihab Hassan for the change of sensibility that occurred during the period. Arnold Toynbee became the first person to use the term outside the specific literary critical sense, when he announced in 1947 that we were entering the postmodern age. In the mid 1970s the term gained importance and comprised first architecture, and later dance, theatre, painting, film and music. Jean Francois Lyotard is undoubtedly one of the most important early theoreticians of postmodernism.  Lyotard, a French philosopher, was commissioned by the Council of Universities of Quebec in the late 1970s to do a survey of the state of knowledge in the Western world. In his seminal work The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, first published in 1979 in French and later translated into English in 1984 he decided to used the word “postmodern” to describe the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed societies. He posited a simple definition for the idea of ‘postmodern’ as “incredulity to metanarratives.” By metanarrative Lyotard  means   all   those   grand   narratives   or   intellectual   discourses   which aim to   offer a comprehensive frame in which to understand some aspect of modern life.  The Enlightenment belief  in   progress, Darwinian theory of evolution, Marxism,  Freudian psychology are   all metanarratives.

Jean Baudrillard, the French sociologist was concerned with the transformation that occurred to signs in the passage of time. For him in the postmodern times it is the “Map that precedes the territory” instead of territory preceding the map. Now it is simulation opposed to representation. Simulation is “the radical negation of sign as value.” For him the four successive stages, the image goes through are the following:

a     a )  It is the basic reflection of reality.

b     b )  It masks and perverts a basic reality.

c     c )  It masks the absence of a basic reality.

d     d )  It bears no relation to any reality whatever; it is its own pure simulacrum.

Another important postmodern theoretician is Frederic Jameson who wrote the foreword to Lyotard’s book The Postmodern Condition. Jameson’s two influential articles on postmodernism are, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society,” later expanded and elaborated as, “Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” and “The Politics of Theory: Ideological Positions in the Postmodern Debate.” In the first essay he explores the important features of postmodernism of which to him the most important is pastiche. Pastiche is a patchwork of words, sentences or complete passages from various authors or one author. It is like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique style. It is a neutral practice, but unlike mimicry it does not have hidden motives and satirical aim. In postmodernism “text” is supplemented or displaced by “discourse.” A keynote feature of postmodernism is the fading of boundaries between genres.

Subalternity

In postcolonialism and related fields, subaltern refers to persons socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structures. The term, derived from the work of the Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, entered postcolonial studies through the work of the Subaltern Studies Group, a collective of South Asian historians s interested in exploring the role of non-elite actors in South Asian history. Following the publication in 1983 of Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India by Ranajit Guha, a Bengali historian, Indian Subaltern Studies became visible in India. If traditional historians addressed the progress of the state, Guha and the

other Subalternists wrote about the activities of those peripheralized by the state; if the one used “event history”, the other used myth and legend, if the one homogenized, the other particularized,

if the one praised the development of nationalism, the other found its faults. The term “subalternity” refers to a condition of subordination brought about by colonization or other forms

of economic, social, racial, linguistic, and/or cultural dominance. Subaltern studies is, therefore, a study of power. Who has it and who does not. Who is gaining it and who is losing it. Power is intimately related to questions of representation—to which representations have cognitive authority and can secure hegemony and which do not and cannot.

             In the 1970s, the term began to be used as a reference to colonized people in the South Asian subcontinent. It provided a new perspective on the history of a colonized place from the perspective of the colonized rather than from the viewpoint of the colonizers. Marxist historians had already begun to view colonial history from the perspective of the proletariat, but this was sometimes seen as unsatisfying as it was still a Eurocentric way of viewing the globe. "Subaltern Studies" began in the early 1980s as an "intervention in South Asian historiography." While "subaltern" began as a model for the Subcontinent, it quickly developed into a "vigorous postcolonial critique." Subaltern is now regularly used as a term in history, anthropology, sociology, human geography, and literature.
         

Some thinkers use it in a general sense to refer to marginalized groups and the lower classes—a person rendered without agency by his or her social status. Others, such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, use it in a more specific sense. She argues that:

subaltern is not just a classy word for oppressed, for Other, for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie....In postcolonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the

cultural imperialism is subaltern-—a space of difference.

Subaltern was first used in a non-military sense by Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Some believe that he used the term as a synonym for proletariat, possibly as a codeword in order to get his writings past prison censors, while others believe his usage to be broader and less clear cut. In several essays, Homi Bhabha, a key thinker within postcolonial thought, emphasizes the importance of social power relations in his working definition of subaltern groups as oppressed, minority groups whose presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group: subaltern social groups were also in a position to subvert the authority of those who had hegemonic power.

Postcolonial theory tries to understand the power and continued dominance of Western ways of knowing. Edward Said’s work Orientalism is related to the idea of the subaltern in that it

explains the way in which orientalism produced the foundation and the justification for the domination of the Other through colonialism. Europeans, Said argues, created an imagined geography of the Orient before European exploration through predefined images of savage and monstrous places that lay outside of the known world. During initial exploration of the Orient these mythologies were reinforced as travelers brought back reports of monsters and strange lands. The idea of difference and strangeness of the Orient continued to be perpetuated through media and discourse creating an "us" and "them" binary through which Europeans defined themselves by defining the differences of the Orient. This laid the foundation for colonialism by presenting the Orient as backward and irrational and therefore in need of help to become modern in the European sense. The discourse of Orientalism is Eurocentric and does not seek to include the voices of the Orientals themselves. Spivak argues that other forms of knowing are marginalized by Western thinkers reforming them as myth or folklore. In order to be heard the subaltern must adopt Western thought, reasoning and language. Because of this, Spivak argues that the subalterns can never

express their own reasoning, forms of knowledge or logic, they must instead form their knowledge to Western ways of knowing. The abandonment of one’s customary thoughts, and the subsequent

adoption of Western thought is necessary in many postcolonial situations. The subordinated individual can only be heard by his oppressors if he speaks their language. Therefore, filters of conformity muddle the true voice of the subaltern. These filters manifest themselves in a multitude of ways.

                 In Colonial Latin America, for example, the subaltern must utilize the filters of religion and servitude in their language. In order to appeal to the good graces of their Spanish oppressors, slaves and natives would mask their own voice with the culture of the Spanish Crown. In 1600, Francisca de Figueroa brought an appeal to the Crown. Francisca, an enslaved African woman in Spain, is requesting permission to join her enslaved daughter in the Americas. As an Afro-Iberian woman, she must repress her own native tongue, and speak Spanish with her adopted Spanish tongue.

Spivak and bell hooks question the academic engagement with the Other. To truly engage with the subaltern they argue that an academic would need to decenter himself or herself as the expert. Traditionally the academic wants to know about the subaltern's experiences but not their own explanations of those experiences. hooks argues that according to the received view in Western knowledge a true explanation can only come from the expertise of the academic. The subordinated subject, gives up their knowledge for the use of the Western academic. hooks describes the relationship between the academic and the subaltern subject:

No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still colonizer the speaking subject and you are now at the center of my talk. 

We must not take on an aspect of superiority while studying these voices. The subaltern's story is a way that we can build a bigger historical picture for ourselves. It allows for us a revealing look at a society, from the perspective of the most powerless individuals that live within its confines. Yet, we must read into these stories tenderly. Or else, we risk further subjugating and further complicating the voice of the Subaltern.

 

Lesbian Feminist Theory and Criticism

Lesbian feminist theory developed as a response both to the heterosexism of mainstream culture and radical subcultures and to the sexism of the male-dominated Gay Liberation movement. It concentrates on the interrelationship between gender and sexual oppression. In particular,

            lesbian feminist theory has consistently problematised heterosexuality as an institution central to the maintenance of patriarchy and women’s oppression with it. Lesbian feminist theory makes use of many other theories and methods. While it cannot be reduced to a single model several features are prominent:

1.    a critique of “compulsory heterosexuality”,
2.    an emphasis on “woman identification”
3.    the creation of an alternative women’s community.
           

         Whether taking a black feminist, a radical feminist or a psychoanalytic approach, lesbian feminist theory foregrounds all of these elements. Gayle Rubin introduced the concept of “compulsory heterosexuality” which later received wide circulation in the essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980) by Adrienne Rich. The concept challenges the common sense view

of heterosexuality as natural and therefore requiring no explanation. Unlike lesbian and gay sexuality Rich argues that heterosexuality is a social institution supported by a range of powerful sanctions. According to Rich the source of lesbianism is in the fact that girl children are of women born and have an original same sex attachment to their mothers

Monique Wittig’s analogous concept of “the straight mind” views heterosexuality as an ideological construct which is almost taken for granted yet institutes an obligatory social relationship between men and women. The discourses of heterosexuality work to oppress all deviants, particularly lesbians.

Psychoanalytical Criticism (Psychological Criticism)

“Psyche” the Greek word means spirit, soul, or mind. Psychology is the science of the mind. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the celebrated Austrian psychologist coined the term psychoanalysis

in 1896. He used the term to describe the therapeutic technique of deeply probing into the unconscious. For Freud human mental activity is controlled by the “unconscious” mind and the primary source of psychic energy is sexual - “libido”.

          

         Psychoanalytic criticism is a form of literary criticism which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. Broadly, psychological criticism deals with the

work of literature as the expression of the inner psyche or character and personality of the author. This was made possible with Sigmund Freud’s important work The Interpretation of Dreams

published  in  1900.    There  is  nothing  new  in  linking  the  author  and  his  work  very  closely.

Coleridge, with his theory of imagination, proceeded on the path of psychological criticism. John Livingston Lowes’ The Road to Xanadu on the sources of Coleridge’s “Rime of Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan” are a sort of non Freudian psychological criticism.

  Linked with Freud’s idea of the unconscious is the idea of “repression” which is the “forgetting” or ignoring of unresolved conflicts, unadmitted desires or traumatic past events which will remain in the unconscious. Through “sublimation” the repressed material is promoted into something grander or is disguised as something “noble.” For example, repressed sexual urges may

be given sublimated expression in the form of intense religious experiences or longings. Repressed experiences also reappear in the form of dream images through a process of displacement and condensation. Displacement is a process wherein one person or event is represented by another which is in some way linked to it. In condensation, a number of people, events or meanings are combined and represented by a single image in the dream. Dreams, thus, communicate indirectly. The purpose of devices like displacement and condensation is two-fold. Firstly these devices disguise the repressed fears and wishes so that they can get past the bodily censor which normally prevents their surfacing into the conscious mind. Secondly, they mould this material into something that can be converted into images, symbols and metaphors which then can be represented in the dream. In the same way, slips, spoonerisms jokes etc, are repressed experiences represented in different forms. By analyzing and coming to the root cause of such manifestations,

psychoanalytic interpretation is able to uncover deep rooted psychological problems. Freud, later suggested a three part model of psyche, dividing it into the “ego,” the “super ego,” and the “id”

which roughly correspond to the consciousness, the conscience and the unconscious.