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LOOKING FOR THE LIGHT ON POSTMODERNISM A "teach yourself" book talks you through an overview of the shocks and aftershocks.

... Glenn Ward. POSTMODERNISM. Teach Yourself Books. Chicago: NTC/ Contemporary Publishing, 1997

Because it is an introduction to the subject of postmodernism, Glenn Ward's book remains at the level of synopsis and summary. However, it does a decent job of scanning the whole terrain. It lays out a useful map for further study.

Coming at it after my extended journey into the subject, I appreciated Ward's ability to tell me succinctly where I had been and what I had learned. (In fact, I doubt that his book would be as meaningful to someone just starting out to "teach yourself" about postmodernism.)

One of my undone postmodern projects is to devise a semester course of study introducing postmodernism. I bogged down in the plethora of materials and plurality of possible approaches (while answering new sirens). With Ward in hand, I think I could complete the syllabus and units in short order. It would be unnecessary to add much to his main topics and his presentations of main writers on postmodernism.

POSTMODERNISM IS EVERYWHERE

Ward rightly, in my view, starts with the understanding that "postmodernism is everywhere." (1) It is not confined to literary or cultural studies but resonates throughout academic and popular culture. Although the fever surrounding postmodernism has subsided, Ward helpfully advises us to think of it as a persistent set of ideas that help explain where the world has come. (4)

Ward is also right, I think, to begin with the question of historical periodization. (5-13) My readings in postmodernism from the start have fascinated me because of their power to throw the preceding modernist experience into sharp relief. As someone who grew up in the high modern period, the 1940s and 1950s, I have been spending my mature years trying to become conscious of the modernist "givens" of which I was not conscious as they operated through much of my life.

THE ARTS OF IMPURITY

In two chapters on "arts of impurity," Ward draws the distinctions between modernist and postmodernist esthetic values. He starts appropriately with architecture, where postmodernism as a perspective first took hold, and moves on to literature and art. (14-50)

In a chapter titled "The Trouble With Reality" (51-79), Ward focuses on the theories of French theorist Jean Baudrillard. Here he links Baudrillard's idea of the simulacrum (or hyper-reality) to earlier social analysis in Marxist thought (72-74). That link with Marx is a valuable window that opens on such thinkers as Walter Benjamin (75) and Marshall McLuhan (77).

In "Taking Meaning Apart" (80-104), Ward introduces the changes in language study that underlie postmodern theory. He pays respects to the founding work of Ferdinand de Saussure, identifies the foundational leaning of structuralism and the subsequent anti-foundational tendency of poststructuralism. Julia Kristeva's opposition to essentialism in gender along with her championing of a "feminine" tongue comes in for Ward's attention (93). That leads to a look at Jacques Derrida's deconstructionist treatment of philosophical, linguistic, and literary texts. (94-104)

WHO IS THE POSTMODERN SELF?

"Identity Crisis Part 1" (105-126) turns attention to a postmodern view of the self or subject and the way that view differs from the modernist view. Ward emphasizes the fundamentally social and constructivist characteristics of the self in postmodernist thought and life. Because the self is a social construct, not an essential core of timeless value, it can change according to styles. Ward situates the issues of identity largely in urban life. (110-111). He explains how the changeability of the self leads to interest in "cyberpeople" who combine human and electronic capabilities (112-114) and to novel permutations on sexuality (115-116). He highlights for illustrative purposes the sexual/gender variations in the public persona of Madonna (117-120) and the photographic self-portraits of Cindy Sherman (120-123).

"Identity Crisis Part 2" (127-154) continues Ward's survey of identity and selfhood by examining Michel Foucault's ideas on the "invention" of the subject through discourses (127-133). Then he takes a shot at explaining how Jacques Lacan sought to explain how the Freudian notion of the total personality was a mistake, how selfhood never escapes from an unstable, unfulfilled condition. (133-136) A quick and inadequate nod to "the politics of desire" of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari follows (136-137). And that leads to a nod to the role of the Frankfurt School, including Marcuse, Adorno, and Horkheimer, who brought a Marxist-based critical theory to bear on the conditions of modernity (137-140).

Having established the unstable identity of the self in postmodern conditions, Ward then winds up his foray into the "identity crisis" of postmodernism by discussing the problems of authorial "expression" in literature and "the death of the author." He explains a bit about the substitute notions for approaching literature as an "intertextual" exercise, in which the language not the author speaks. (143-154)

THE THEORIES OF POSTMODERNISM

In his final chapter, "Theorising the Broken World," (155-184), we learn about Jean-Francois Lyotard's critique of "objective" science and his notion of "metanarratives" as dominant cultural determiners. (156-160) Then Ward tries--rather unsuccessfully--to explain how postmodern cultural theory has modified Marxist class theory to deal with the new social conditions (160-162). He shows how "micropolitics" and "techniques of daily life" have replaced the pursuit of grand narratives of social transformation, including classical Marxism (162-165). Ward next glances at the thinking of Jurgen Habermas (166-168) on the rescue of the Enlightenment; and of the American geographer Edward Soja (169-171), who seeks to redefine spatial occupancy as a key concept in the analysis of postmodern society. Fredric Jameson's major contributions to the cultural definitions of postmodern culture, drawn from a neo-Marxist reservoir of social theory, come in for due attention (171-174). Ward then explains how "theorising the city" emerges from the thinking of Jameson and others (174-176).

Finally, Ward connects the rise of "globalization" to postmodernism (176-184). He touches on the issues of "shifting boundaries" in a technologically connected world (177); "globalised identities" (178); "post-coloniality" (179; the inclusive language that emerges from global theories (180); the complexities of negotiating from the "center" to the "margin" (181-184).

Ward ends with "an inconclusion" (184). He thus accentuates the elusive, open-ended nature of any attempt to get one's mind totally around the issues associated with postmodernism. Yet he believes that the term postmodernism, "however slippery and contradictory it might be, offers a way into debates about contemporary societies, cultures and lifestyles." (184)