Tolerance and Allegory missing word

[David Morris]

>From: Jan Risvig Henriksen
>
>I'm new to this list [snip]

AA Welcome: Hi! Jan (Please! We'll try to forget your last 2 names).

>"M. Collette" wrote:
>
> > In defining the "post-modern" as it is used in our various contexts, let 
>us
> > remind ourselves that the post-modern precedes the modern (it becomes 
>modern
> > with application and meta acceptance)....  The post-modern is away from 
>a
> > (universalist) mode, but toward a multiplicity of modes. It is an 
>acceptance of
> > the variety of meanings that
> > can occur from the writer of the text and the reader of that particular
> > text.
>
>Assuming that there is indeed such a thing as pom, it may be said to 
>precede the
>modern. The concept of pom is notoriously fluid and plastic -- this seems 
>to have
>become the standard way to begin a discussion of pom. But is the modern 
>really
>characterised by universalism as such? Did the New Critics, for instance, 
>really
>claim that there was only one correct way to read, say, "Kubla Khan"? I 
>realise
>that it is crucial for those who believe in the postmodern to define it in
>opposition to some other (the modern), but is the pom-description of the 
>modern
>really tenable?
>

"Universalism?"  Well in archtecture (sorry, but I've put up w/ lots of 
litcrit) the term was "International."  The tenor was also evangelical.  
Individual Moderns did break the mold, which led to PoMo.

>"M. Collette" also wrote:
>
> > I take issue with the assessment of Derrida and deconstruction as
> > "banal"---Derrida is acknowledging the subjectivity of text (and 
>removing
> > the meta quality of it) from both the readers and writers perspective as
> > well the multiplicity of meaning of text. He is removing text from the 
>meta
> > (or "master" as you refer to Lyotard's perspective") to liberate the 
>reader
> > and writer toward alternative meanings.  I think by using the term 
>"banal"
> > you may be demonizing a certain perspective
>
>I must admit that I find Deconstruction equally banal and trite. I fail to 
>see
>what's so liberating about it: if it's the claim that a piece of text can 
>be read
>in different ways, it's a very uncontroversial claim, and not a claim 
>necessarily
>hostile to modernism (assuming that we are talking the same thing!); in 
>other
>words, it's banal! [snip]

"Deconstruction" in architecture is formal masturbation.  It was breifly 
popular, mostly in schools.  Peter Eiseman is its longstanding American 
proponent, doing it long before it got a name.  It involves slicing and 
dicing of forms, showing all those mutiltudes of cuts.  Originality is 
acheived via blade angle.  In other words, banal (IMHO), but able to 
disorient.

http://www.greatbuildings.com/gbc/buildings/Frank_House-Eisenman.html
http://www.skewarch.com/architects/eisenman/project.htm
http://www.wexarts.org/home.shtml
http://www.architecturemag.com/nov98/spec/eisen.asp

And a book called _Chora L Works : Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman_
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-glance/1885254407/002-7719493-9113863


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com