California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: February 13, 2000
jeanne
Susan

Postmodernism has been identified with absolute rejection of metanarratives and with fragmentation because of its focus on diversity and the importance of the local. Consult Steve Best's review of David Harvey's Condition of Postmodernity. According to Best, what is Harvey's view of such fragmentation?

Click on the letter below which best reflects an answer based on the preparatory reading for this seminar discussion:

A. Harvey believes, according to Best, that postmodernism is deserving of serious consideration. But he does not give an exaggerated importance to some of its claims, such as the absolute rejection of metanarrative.

B. Fragmentation is one result of the discontinuities between modernisn and the present sensitivity to unique local perspectives and narratives. But Harvey sees continuities with the modern perspective, as well as discontinuities.

C. Harvey, according to Best, believes that some modernists, like Baudelaire, combined the best of the universal, totalizing approach with the best of the fragmentary, unique, and local approach. So that Harvey sees the criticism of the postmodernists as going too far in their opposition to metanarrative and in their critics charge of fragmentation resulting from attention to local narratives.

D. Fragmentation is one possible result of reaction to the over reliance on enlightenment meta-narratives. But Harvey suggests that postmodernists are overly critical of the metanarrative, and that the "meta-narratives that the post-modernists decry (Marx, Freud, and even later figures like Althusser) were much more open, nuanced, and sophisticated than the critics admit" (115).

E. All of the above.

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Annotation on Postmodernism

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Escape to Annotations on Theory
Escape to Dear Habermas Home

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Figurine by Rudiger Appel. Notice that you can see three effects in the animation. Either the Variation on the Kandinsky figurine appears to turn in a clockwise direction, or in a counterclockwise direction, or it appears to open and close. Can you see all three effects? Try. Fascinated? Link to Appel's site and then link to the background he provides. Scroll down until you find a link to background.

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Chantessy's Page Chantessy's Mardi Gras Alphabet was originally used on this page. We changed it because it was too distracting as eye candy. Chantessy was the first contributor to our Kids' Site when we began Dear Habermas. Visit her page. Check out the sliders puzzles on her fun page. Or check out her candy box and send a friend a posty. Non-violent ways to respond to structural violence in the academy! It's great fun.