Customer Reviews

Postmodernism for Beginners (A Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book)

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This book got me through graduate school, and taught me a thing or two, besides. Also, its illustrations and tone made it all fun. The trouble with postmodern thought, which one MUST give the appearance of having learned, if one is to be successful in a graduate education in the humanities, is that it is so labyrinthine, so French, and so obscure. Thus, most of us end up reading French authors in translation. We must read Derrida, Baudrillard, Foucault, Cixous, etc, etc, depending upon the translations. The next problem is that Derrida's writings, for instance, are a series of readings of other writers: Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc. In order to really understand Derrida, we should be able to read him in the original, PLUS be able to read Plato, Heidegger, Nietzsche, etc, in the original. Such a task is daunting, if not impossible. And, in fact, very few people have the time or inclination to master Greek, Latin, German, French and all the important philosophers who have written in those languages. Thus, most people talk about Postmodernism without even having really learned one of its major authors. This boils down to grad students and professors making moves in a game. The game consists of using buzz words and phrases of PoMo-babble--without a real in-depth knowledge that one would need to discuss even one of these thinkers seriously. To do that would take a lifetime of study.

I loved Powell's book, because it gave me a quick understanding of many Postmodern writers--and advanced my ability to make moves in the game it seems that we all must play. Also, without Powell's overview, simply launching into a translation of Derrida or Foucault would have been almost useless. Having gained some insight into their thought, my initial readings of their work were much easier. For beginners and even skilled players in the game of the heady field of Postmodernism, such an overview is warmly welcome.

My opinion is divided. On the one hand, Powell gives excellent summaries of individual "postmodernists" and their positions. His readings of Baudrillard, Jencks, and Derrida, among others, are especially revealing. For this reason, I do recommend the book.

On the other hand, the book never adequately distinguishes the various understandings of what "postmodernism" is. There are several discrete views of postmodernism, and they are not all compatible. At least four of these views are discussed by Powell: (1)postmodernism is viewed by some as a recent global-cultural condition in which different societies confront one another; (2)postmodernism is understood by some as a technological condition brought on by new electronic and mass media technologies; (3)postmodern architecture, as a response to modern architecture, attempts to recover the human element of architecture, and to make it meaningful rather than just functional; and (4)postmodern art, as a response to modern art, varies from aimless free-play to a rejection of the very idea of representation. One can see how some of the thinkers discussed by Powell overlap these categories. For example, Lyotard blends views (1) and (2), while Jencks blends views (1)and (3). And one can imagine other possibilities. For example, one could be a postmodern -- i.e. anti-modern -- architect, without being a postmodernist in senses (1), (2) or (4).

Lastly, and most problematic, is that Friedrich Nietzsche is discussed as a modernist rather than the postmodernist who started most of all this. Powell's reading of Nietzsche has some merit, but I disagree. When Nietzsche proclaimed the "Death of God", he rejected all modernist commitments to other-worldy realities. This left the "void" which Powell discusses. And Nietzsche did attempt to fill in the void. But he did not do so by positing a new "essence of humanity" or "eternal value", as some of the modern artists after Nietzsche tried to do (pg. 13). What Nietzsche put in place of modernism was the view that reality is lived experience, and that reality is largely the product of human invention. One's "essence" is what one makes of one's self. This is what Nietzsche meant by the idea of a Superman. It is the vision of a post-modern human being who decides his/her own fate.

Nietzsche's critique of modernism, then, is a fifth distinct position: (5) some view postmodernism as a philosophical rejection or skepticism of all metaphysical systems. This is what Lyotard means when discussing the loss of "metanarratives". It is what drives Derrida's program of "deconstruction". And it is the post-Nietzschean "void" which frames the work of many postmodern artists. Indeed, philosophical postmodernism informs most of the thinkers discussed by Powell. In the end, postmodernism can be understood in philosophical, global-cultural, or technological terms. (Postmodern art/architecture is art/architecture motivated by one or several of the above concerns.) And again, the various thinkers summarized in "Postmodernism for Beginners" are responding to one or more of these distinct understandings of postmodernism.

This is the first book on Postmodernism I've ever finished. It gives you not only Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault and Derrida, but also Blade Runner, Buddha, and Madonna. Always lucid and engaging, it meets you where you are by never presuming you have a background in the subject. Other books on Postmodernism begin by gleefully flooding you in terms such as "aborescence," "diegetic," "interpellation," and "simulacra." By the third page your head aches and you throw the book aside - if you're still awake. You might give up, concluding that Postmodernism is a kind of navel-gazing for college professors with too much time on their hands.

But Powell borrows Postmodernism from the ivory tower and makes it fun. Written in a lively "Q & A" dialogue style, Powell's book allows you to see, feel and think about our world the way the Postmodernist theorists have written about it. Talking about everything from T.S. Eliot to Beavis and Butt-Head, from college catalogues to MTV, Powell shows how almost everything in front of us evinces the postmodern condition.

Postmodernism is also easy to understand, the way Powell places it in historical context. He casts it as a way to understand the breakdown of the grandiose cultural schemes envisioned by the thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries. God and Reason were going to conquer the world and make it safe for ... God and Reason. This did not happen. Instead, the last fifty years have brought us closer to minicultures and multicultures. This cultural flux has been spread by modern freeways, air travel, bookstore chains, movies, and MTV. Powell takes you through the reactions by thinkers such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Charles Jencks, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and David Harvey. He discusses art, architecture, the printed word, spirituality, TV and the Internet. With kindly democratic spirit, Powell sees Postmodernism as against the marginalization of anyone, and as embracing of the diversity of the world we live in.

Joe Lee's funny and irreverent illustrations carry forth Powell's well written presentation. The artwork includes cartoon characters, crusty philosophers, classical artwork, and the odd schematic diagram. Reading this book is like a friendly fireside chat with a well-informed friend. I immediately went off to look for Powell's DERRIDA FOR BEGINNERS.

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Since there's less difference between post-structuralism and post-modernism than between the two "comic books" this series devotes to the two terms, readers may wish to know which one to purchase. I found Powell's book on postmodernism considerably more readable than its cousin, partly because of the subject ("postmodern" entails an era as well as a theory and, moreover, is inextricably bound up with popular culture) but also because of Powell's style and approach: The book's narrative, map, and examples not only steer the reader through the potential clutter but keep him sufficiently interested and entertained to become informed. Moreover, Powell covers (with the exception of Jacques Lacan) the major thinkers dealt with in this same series' introduction to post-structuralism.

The author manages to maintain sufficient detachment from his subject to provide perspective and levity while at the same time taking it seriously enough to provide a substantial explanation of the causes and symptoms of postmodernism, a decoding of its formidable jargon, and a lucid explication of difficult writers such as Baudrillard and Jameson. He also addresses key questions such as the difference between modernism and postmodernism, post-structuralism and post-modernism (let me put it this way: the former "reads" the text of verbal signs, or words; the latter reads the text of visual signs, or images).

A couple of caveats: Deconstructionists, post-modernists, etc. tend to take themselves very seriously, ironically adopting reactionary positions and political ideologies no less rigid than the "logocentric" views they originally challenged. Also, in many respects the media culture changes so quickly and unexpectedly that even "pomo" gurus like Baudrillard can suddenly look quaintly old-fashioned and dated.

Finally, post-structuralism, deconstruction, postmodernism are primarily words of the academy; their value as currency, moreover, rapidly diminished after the 1980s. But because so many young academics, graduate students, and sophomoric philosopher-dilettantes invested so much of themselves in learning French theory (often at the expense of studying the objects of inquiry), they tend to overestimate its importance on the present-day scene, imposing it upon bewildered young students having difficulty weighing its actual importance. The author's plan does not include a critique of "postmodernism," but had he room for an additional chapter, he might well have considered providing one.

So many introductions to postmodernism are boring, or even unreadable simply because they are written by people who cannot write. These "writers" simply parrot the same pomobabble that so many postmodern thinkers indulge in--as if they were all members of some wierd cult. Powell--who CAN actually write--frys them for this, but then goes on to present excellent overviews of several important writers. One would not expect to find such depth in a comic book. The summary of Baudrillard's work, for instance, is often more insightful than those found in much weightier and intentionally serious volumes. Powell, explains the evoultion of Baudrillard's thoughts from its Marxist roots. Powell is especially good when it comes to the enigmatic Derrida, and his 'deconstruction.' Although Postmodernism for Beginners does not tackle Derrida's major works--as does Powell's Derrida for Beginners--it does make Derrida less mercurial, so that readers can then go on to read Derrida's works forewarned and forearmed. Powell really brings postmodernism to light, however, in his presentation of postmodern artifacts: Madonna, Bladerunner, cyberpunk, etc. Joe Lee's illustrations often present subtle asides to Powell's Proustian prose. All-in-all, one of the best I've read in the For-Beginners series.

Jim Powell's entertaining book shows how much we Americans who distrust intellectuals and intellectualism ought to learn form French contemporary thinkers about our own culture. From Leyotard to Deleuse, Derrida, Foucault...and most recently Baudrillard, they each have a different view on our Postmodern Condition and Jim Powell explains their uniqueness in a simple, layman's language with a style that is also in essence postmodern, that is, a mixture of contemporary Internet slang and Postmodern-ease. The book is written with a quasi-proustian syntax of endless sentences, relentlessly poring out new meanings and snaking thorough the shores of postmodern though, in a style, which Walter Benjamin once qualified of the `Nile of Language.'

Really this book should be called PostmodernismS for beginners, because, as Powell points out--there is no single unified Postmodern movement. Rather it is a hodgepodge of influences from architecture, capitalism, technology, philosophy, and the arts that is changing our world. Powell delves into many of these Postmodernisms, in a readable and lucid way. Highly recommended.

I have already reviewed a book with the same title, but by a different author (Richard Appignanesi), and a commentator on my review drew my attention to this one. Like the Appignanesi, it is a short book and illustrated with somewhat crude cartoons (here by Joe Lee) on every page, but the text is, for the most part, rather clearer, and the historical background that has given birth to postmodernism is well done. There is even the odd (welcome) sardonic remark about the gurus of postmodernism. The last section, attributing a postmodern agenda to various films and novels, is somewhat bewildering to this octogenarian (though he teaches philosophy): I have not seen or read any of them and have no wish to do so. The book explains some of the most irritating features of the modern media. It also attributes disintegrative effects to computers and television. Computers have not struck me as presenting a disintegrating experience; but television is sometimes another matter. Perhaps some of the clever lads and lasses behind some television programmes are consciously being postmodernist. This old curmudgeon finds them simply pretentious (as he finds much of the theory) and switches them off.

I still think Christopher Butler's `Postmodernism - A Very Short Introduction' (Oxford University Press, 2002) is very much more satisfying.

but that's not the books fault. read the long review written by one of the other commentators. postmodernism is hard to define and this comic-book style book helps you wade through the dark waters of the theories and theorists surrounding postmodernism.

I liked this book because it gives good summaries of the thought of many of the most important Postmodern theorists: Baudrillard, Derrida, Deleuze and Guitarri, Foucault, etc. Also, it is entertaining. If you are a humanities major or even a science major, I would recommend it--as postmodernism impacts the sciences as well.