Globalization I: Postmodernism

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Globalization I Postmodernism

• Cultural Flows and Postmodern Forms
• in Postmodern Time and Space

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Outline

• Starting Questions
• From Modernity to Postmodernity a Review
• Postmodern Culture
• (1) Time-Space Compression
• (2) Loss of Affect History
• (3) Reflexive Postmodernism
• (4) Globalization as Cultural Imperialism?

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Starting Questions

• What is Postmodernity? And modernity?
• What are the examples of postmodernism that you
  know of?
• Why did we analyze In Country last week? And
  Forrest Gump this week?

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Postmodernism 2-1

• From Modernity to Postmodernity

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From Modernity to Postmodernity
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From Modernity to Postmodernity (2)
Increasing emphasis on
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Postmodernism 2-2

• Cultural/Economic Flows in Postmodern Time and
  Space

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Postmodern Time and Space

• Separation of Time, Space and Place from each
  other (thru
• Disembeddedness of social relations and signs
  and re-embedding the re-definition of
  traditional signs/relations in a new context.

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Postmodern Time and Space (2)

• 3. Compression
• 1) The pace of production and communication get
  accelerated so that boundaries are broken and
  this world sometimes seems to collapse inwards
  upon us" (Harvey 240).
• "The central value system . . . is dematerialized
  and shifting, time horizons are collapsing, and
  it is hard to tell exactly what space we are in
  when it comes to assessing causes and effects,
  meanings or values" (Harvey 298). 
• "The interweaving of simulacra in daily life
  brings together different worlds (of commodities)
  in the same space and time.  But it does so in
  such a way as to conceal almost perfectly any
  trace of origin, of the labour processes that
  produced them, or of the social relations
  implicated in their production" (300)

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Cultural and Economic Flows Worldwide, but
uneven

• Transcultural flows culture travels to us as
  signs and commodities
• Spreading of Western culture and technologies
• Disjunctive Flows multiple scape (scene e.g.
  landscape),. e.g. the disjunctive flows of
  ethnoscapes, technoscapes, finanscapes,
  mediascapes and ideoscapes
• multiple cores, multiple semi-peripheries and
  peripheries.

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Postmodernism 2-3

• How are Postmodernisms related to Postmodernity?
  
• With Symptoms of Loss of Affect History?

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Central Issue The Postmodern Debate
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Critique of Postmodernism F. Jameson as an
Example (1) Loss of Affect

• Van Goghs peasant shoes

• Andy Warhols Diamond Dust Shoes

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Monroe by Andy Warhol
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F. Jamesons Critique (2) Loss of History

• Pastiche (??? blank parody--parody with no
  critical intent or humor) Eclipses Parody
  (critical of a norm)-- style becomes codes,
  reassembled playfully and without critical intent
  (e.g. Top Gun? Hot Shot, Moulin Rouge, Ferris
  Beulers Day Off ????)
• Nostalgia Film -- the past becomes a composite of
  stereotypes, spectacles no stars (with
  'personality' in the older sense)
• (e.g. 1) historical films -- ??????????
• 2) Postmodern pastiche or sci-fi Somewhere in
  Time, Back to Future, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart,
  etc.)

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Reflexive Postmodernism (chap 6 pp. 152-)

• the figural over the discursive ?
  aestheticization of everyday life.
• ? The readers or consumers thus get their choices
  in the aesthetic combination/interpretation of
  signs.

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Postmodern Self-Reflexive Texts the other types

• Questioning Boundaries between reality and
  fiction
• Vanilla Sky Mulholland Drive
• The Purple Rose of Cairo, ?????, Stuntman
• Questioning Consumer Culture
• Icicle Thief
• Questioning History
• Ararat and ???
• Novels by ??????, etc. etc.

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Postmodernism 2-4

• Cultural Imperialism vs. Globalization

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Cultural Imperialism argument (textbook chap
5115- )

• --the dominance , worldwide, of a standardized,
  'homogenized' consumer culture, emanating from
  western (and particularly North American)
  capitalism, represents a form of global cultural
  regulation.
• Basic thesis certain dominant cultures threaten
  to overwhelm other more vulnerable ones.  e.g.
  America over Europe, "the West over the Rest,"
  the core over the periphery, capitalism over more
  or less everyone.

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Cultural Imperialism argument two major strands

• 1. "anti-Americanism"--against American cultural
  and  economic dominance, could be a form of
  cultural protectionism (e.g. the banning of
  importation or use of satellite dishes in Islamic
  states).
• Danger of protectionism or nationalism who are
  "we" that get represented in national culture?

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Cultural Imperialism argument two major strands

• 2. against transnational capitalism supported by
  communication systems--
• Examples of cultural domination Disney,
  Hollywood Film e.g. the film Evita,
  MacDonald's, Coca-Cola, Nikeand even Internet.
• Hides the facts of exploitation
• Liking them (esp. those cultural texts such as Mu
  Lan and Sex in the Cities), we absorb their
  ideologies, too.

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Cultural Imperialism argument Counter-Argument

• 1. not predominantly American culture
• The complex cross-cutting and overlay of
  communication paths and flows takes on a less
  benign aspect now it appears as a 'web' which
  enmeshes and binds all cultures. the dominant
  culture as "the 'distanciated' influences" which
  order our everyday lives b. imports operate at a
  'cultural discount'

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Cultural Imperialism argument Counter-Argument

• 2. Viewer reception the viewers may receive
  dominant culture differently. -- patterns of TV
  viewing--a. 'primetime' scheduled for local shows
  
• -- A research done of the viewer reception of
  Dallas (????) in Holland, which shows indeed a
  diversity of more localized responses.

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Cultural Imperialism argument Counter-Argument

• 3. the 'decentring' of capitalism from the West
  --against core-periphery argument This
  structuring of the global capitalist system
  assures the continued economic weakness, cultural
  subordination and conditions for the exploitation
  of the Third World by the First.  It does not
  adequately grasp the complexities of the
  operation of global capitalism.
• But how about the influences of Japan and Korea
  here?
• Multiple Cores and peripheries.

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Cultural Imperialism argument Counter-Argument

• Globalization is a global project
• Globalization is unlikely to produce an entirely
  regulated, homogenized global culture. A.
  'indegenization' of Western cultural goods,
  localization B. deterritorialization caused by
  the capital by the immigrants from Asia, Africa
  or Latin America

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References

• Mike Featherstone (ed.), Global
  Culture.Nationalism, globalization and
  modernity. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi
  Sage, pp. 31-55
• Frederic Jameson -- http//www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Lite
  rary_Criticism/postmodernism/jameson.htm