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| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism Kevin Hart, 2004-04-01 Adopting the role of tour guide, award-winning writer Kevin Hart leads the reader through the pitfalls, conundrums and complexities that characterize postmodernism, while providing an overview of the many different approaches (philosophical, cultural, literary…) to the subject. All the major thinkers are introduced – from Derrida to Blanchot, Irigaray to Foucault, and more besides – while the book is unique among introductory guides in its consideration of the role of religion in a postmodern world. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism Kevin Hart, 2008 |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism Kevin Hart, 2006 |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism Kevin O'Donnell, 2003 An engaging and accessible introduction to a complex but fascinating topic in a handy colour-illustrated format |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism for Historians Callum G. Brown, 2013-12-02 Postmodernism is an essential approach to History. This is the first dedicated primer on postmodernism for the historian. It offers a step-by-step guide to postmodern theory, includes a guide to how historians have applied the theory, and provides a review of why its critics are wrong. In simple and clear language, it takes the reader through the chain of theory that developed in the 20th century to become now, in the early 21st century, the leading stimulant of new forms of research in History. With separate chapters on The Sign, The Discourse, Post/Structuralism, The Text, The Self, and Morality, this book will encourage a new critical awareness of Theory when reading books of History, and when writing essays and dissertations. Armed with the principal ideas of Saussure, Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida, the historians can formulate how to combine empirical History with the excitement of fresh perspectives and new skills, merged in the new moral impetus of the postmodern condition. Designed for the beginner this is the essential postmodern starting point. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism for Beginners Jim Powell, 2007 If you are like most people, you're not sure what Postmodernism is. And if this were like most books on the subject, it probably wouldn't tell you. Jim Powell takes the position that Postmodernism is a series of `maps' that help people find their way through a changing world. Postmodernism For Beginners features the thoughts of Foucault on power and knowledge, Jameson on mapping the postmodern, Baudrillard on the media, Harvey on time-space compression, Derrida on deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari on rhizomes. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodernism Glenn Ward, 2003-01-01 Postmodernism embodies the idea that there are no new ideas to be invented - everything is borrowed from previous times and we live in a post-modern age. This book is the essential introduction to postmodernism and offers an indispensible guide to this sometimes demanding terrain. It is aimed at readers encountering theories of postmodernism for the first time, and places the subject in a wide context. It will appeal to all those studying the subject academically and anyone with a desire to know more. Teach Yourself Postmoderism puts forward a number of ideas and debates which are both stimulating and worthwhile. Chapters are organised around broad themes and concerns rather than around individual ideologies, schools of thought or art-forms. This allows the reader to tailor the subject matter to their own interests and requirements. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Ways Around Modernism Stephen Bann, 2013-10-18 Stephen Bann examines the arguments for the centrality of French modernist painting. He begins by focusing particularly on the notion of the modernist break, as it has been interpreted with regard to painters like Manet and Ingres. He argues that ‘curiosity’, with its origins in the seventeenth-century world-view can be a valid concept for understanding some aspects of contemporary art that contest the modern, suggesting ways of sidetracking the modern by adopting a lengthier historical view. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: A Beginner's Guide to Social Theory Shaun Best, 2003-02-24 Offering a comprehensive overview of social theory from classical sociology to the present day, this text guides students through the work of Durkheim, Marx and Weber, feminism, postmodernism and contemporary thinkers like Foucault. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Master Narratives and their Discontents James Elkins, 2013-10-18 In this bracing engagement with the many versions of art history, James Elkins argues that the story of modernism and postmodernism is almost always told in terms of four narratives. Works of art are either seen as modern or postmodern, or praised for their technical skill or because of the politics they appear to embody. These are master narratives of contemporary criticism, and each leads to a different understanding of what art is and does. Both a cogent overview of the state of thinking about art and a challenge to think outside the art historical box, Master Narratives and their Discontents is the first volume in a series of short books on the theories of modernism by leading art historians on twentieth-century art and art criticism. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Understand Postmodernism Glenn Ward, 2010 Explore the wide-ranging and sometimes demanding terrain of postmodernism. This guide tracks the emergence of postmodern theory and explores it in the context of art, literature, politics, philosophy and more. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodern Magic Patrick Dunn, 2005 Fresh ideas for the modern mage lie at the heart of this thought-provoking guide to magic theory. Approaching magical practice from an information paradigm, Patrick Dunn provides a unique and contemporary perspective on an ancient practice. Imagination, psychology, and authority-the most basic techniques of magic-are introduced first. From there, Dunn teaches all about symbol systems, magical artifacts, sigils, spirits, elementals, languages, and magical journeys, and explains their significance in magical practice. There are also exercises for developing magic skills, along with techniques for creating talismans, glamours, servitors, divination decks, modern defixios, and your own astral temple. Dunn also offers tips on aura detection, divination, occult networking, and conducting your own magic research. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: A Primer on Postmodernism Stanley J. Grenz, 1996-02-06 From the academy to pop culture, our society is in the throes of change rivaling the birth of modernity out of the decay of the Middle Ages. We are now moving from the modern to the postmodern era. But what is postmodernism? How did it arise? What characterizes the postmodern ethos? What is the postmodern mind and how does it differ from the modern mind? Who are its leading advocates? Most important of all, what challenges does this cultural shift present to the church, which must proclaim the gospel to the emerging postmodern generation? Stanley Grenz here charts the postmodern landscape. He shows the threads that link art and architecture, philosophy and fiction, literary theory and television. He shows how the postmodern phenomenon has actually been in the making for a century and then introduces readers to the gurus of the postmodern mind-set. What he offers here is truly an indispensable guide for understanding today's culture. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Navigating Postmodern Theology Michael J. McGravey, 2023-07-03 Navigating Postmodern Theology: Insights from Jean-Luc Marion and Gianni Vattimo’s Philosophy provides an introduction to these two authors in relation to theology and metaphysics. This book invites the reader to consider new ways of thinking about theology in a postmetaphysical way, grounded in Marion’s phenomenology and Vattimo’s philosophy. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Political Satire, Postmodern Reality, and the Trump Presidency Mehnaaz Momen, 2018-12-11 This book attempts to grasp the recent paradigm shift in American politics through the lens of satire. It connects changes in the political and cultural landscape to corresponding shifts in the structure and organization of the media, in order to shed light on the evolution of political satire on late-night television. Satire is situated in its historical background to comprehend its movement away from the fringes of discourse to the very center of politics and the media. Beginning in the 1990s, certain trends such as technological advances, media consolidation, and the globalization of communications reinforced each other, paving the way for satire to claim a prized spot in the visual media—a tendency that only gained strength after September 11. While the Bush presidency presented itself as an apposite target for satirists, their stronghold on American television was made possible by a number of transitions in broader culture, which are encapsulated in the shrinking space available for political engagement under neoliberalism. This largely underestimated development can be understood through the framework of postmodernism, which focuses on the relationship between language, power, and the presentation of reality. These trends and transitions reached a climax in the 2016 election where President Trump was elected, embodying what can only be considered a significant turning point in American politics. The bigger narrative contains various subplots represented in the rise of the neoliberal economy, the acceptance of postmodernism as the dominant cultural code, and the role of the voyeur superseding that of the engaged citizen. It is only through understanding each of these pieces and connecting them that we can comprehend the current political transformation. The present moment may feel like a golden age of satire, and it may well be, but this book addresses the hardest questions about the realities behind such a claim: what can we conclude about when and how satire is effective, judging by the history of this genre in its various incarnations, and how can the “apolitical” postmodern media landscape be reconciled with what the best of this genre has had to offer during times of political duress? |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners Donald D. Palmer, 2007-08-21 “What is Structuralism? How is it possible? And once the structures of Structuralism have been discovered, how is Poststructuralism possible?” Thus begins Don Palmer’s Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners. If Nobel or Pulitzer ever made a prize for making the most difficult philosophers and ideas accessible to the greatest number of people, one of the leading candidates would certainly be Professor Don Palmer. From his Sartre For Beginners and Kierkegaard For Beginners to his Looking at Philosophy, author/illustrator Don Palmer has the magic touch when it comes to translating the most brutally difficult ideas into language and images that non-specialists can understand. “In its less dramatic versions,” writes Palme, “structuralism is just a method of studying language, society, and the works of artists and novelists. But in its most exuberant form, it is a philosophy, an overall worldview that provides an account of reality and knowledge.” Poststructuralism is a loosely knit intellectual movement, comprised mainly of ex-structuralists, who either became dissatisfied with the theory or felt they could improve it. Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners is an illustrated tour through the mysterious landscape of Structuralism and Poststructuralism. The book’s starting point is the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Sausser. The book moves on to the anthropologist and literary critic Claude Lévi-Strauss; the semiologost and literary critic Roland Barthes; the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. Learn among other things, why structuralists say Reality is composed of not Things, but Relationships Every “object” is both a presence and an absence The total system is present in each of its parts The parts are more real than the whole The book concludes by examining the postmodern obsession with language and with the radical claim of the disappearance of the individual – obsessions that unite the work of all these theorists. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Time Helga Nowotny, 2018-03-12 Helga Nowotny's exploration of the forms and meaning of time in contemporary life is panoramic without in any way partaking of the blandness of a survey. From the artificial time of the scientific laboratory to the distinctively modern yearning for one’s own time, she regards every topic in this wide-ranging book from a fresh angle of vision, one which reveals unsuspected affinities between the bravest, newest worlds of global technology and the most ancient worlds of myth. --Lorraine Daston, University of Chicago This book represents a major contribution to the understanding of time, giving particular attention to time in relation to modernity. The development of industrialism, the author points out, was based upon a linear and abstract conception of time. Today we see that form of production, and the social institutions associated with it, supplanted by flexible specialization and just-in-time production systems. New information and communication technologies have made a fundamental impact here. But what does all this mean for temporal regimes? How can we understand the transformation of time and space involved in the bewildering variety of options on offer in a postmodern world? The author provides an incisive analysis of the temporal implications of modern communication. She considers the implications of worldwide simultaneous experience, made possible by satellite technologies, and considers the reorganization of time involved in the continuous technological innovation that marks our era. In this puzzling universe of action, how does one achieve a 'time of one's own'? The discovery of a specific time perspective centred in the individual, she shows, expresses a yearning for forms of experience that are subversive of established institutional patterns. This brilliant study, became a classic in Germany, will be of interest to students and professionals working in the areas of social theory, sociology, politics and anthropology. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: The Revelation Worldview Jon K. Newton, 2015-02-06 Does Christianity have anything useful or credible to say to the twenty-first century, or is it just a relic of a past era, doomed eventually to die a long and painful death, perhaps to be replaced by the new atheism or another religion? In an original contribution to such debates, The Revelation Worldview is a bold attempt to construct a biblically based Christian worldview that makes sense to postmodern people. It also seeks to make the book of Revelation, one of the most strange and difficult books in the Bible, relevant to issues facing people in the twenty-first century. Jon K. Newton wrestles with the complex notion of worldview, tells the story of the changing Western worldview from its ancient and medieval beginnings through the modern era and into the unpredictable world of postmodernism, and compares the worldview found in Revelation with other worldviews of its day. He then uses Revelation as a source for identifying some basic Christian answers to questions such as: What is real? How do we know anything? How can religious knowledge claims be justified? How can we understand the concept of the human person? How can we make sense of history? And how should we respond to pluralism? |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: The New French Philosophy Ian James, 2012-05-14 This book gives a critical assessment of key developments in contemporary French philosophy, highlighting the diverse ways in which recent French thought has moved beyond the philosophical positions and arguments which have been widely associated with the terms 'post-structuralism' and 'postmodernism'. These developments are assessed through a close comparative reading of the work of seven contemporary thinkers: Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou and François Laruelle. The book situates the writing of each philosopher in relation to earlier traditions of French thought. In differing ways, these philosophers decisively distance themselves from the linguistic paradigm which dominated so much twentieth-century thought in order to rethink philosophical conceptions of materiality, worldliness, shared embodied existence and human agency or subjectivity. They thereby open the way for a radical renewal of the claims, possibilities and transformative power of philosophical thinking itself. This book will be an indispensable text for students of philosophy and for anyone interested in current developments in philosophy and social thought. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion Chad Meister, Paul Copan, 2010-02-25 The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion is an indispensable guide and reference source to the major themes, movements, debates and topics in philosophy of religion. A team of renowned international contributors provide sixty-five accessible entries organized into nine clear parts: philosophical issues in world religions key figures in philosophy of religion religious diversity the theistic conception of God arguments for the existence of God arguments against the existence of God philosophical theology christian theism recent topics in philosophy of religion. Covering key world religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, and key figures such as Augustine, Aquinas and Kierkegaard, the book explores the central topics in theism such as the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments for God's existence. Three final parts consider Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern orthodoxy and current debates including phenomenology, reformed epistemology, religious experience, and religion and science. This is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, religion and related disciplines. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Fantastic Reality Mignon Nixon, Louise Bourgeois, 2005 A critical study of Louise Bourgeois's art from the 1940s to the 1980s: its departure from surrealism and its dialogue with psychoanalysis. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Explaining Postmodernism Stephen Hicks, 2019-02 Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left--the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism--now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Crowley a Beginners Guide John S. Moore, John Patrick Higgins, 2015-10-12 Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Nearly seventy years after his death Aleister Crowley, the notorious Beast 666, is only just beginning to attract serious academic attention. Even so we would not expect to find him on any mainstream university courses; he is still too much associated with occultism. So, Crowley A Beginners Guide is not your standard beginner s guide. Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known. Readers may be surprised at the richness and complexity of his thought, as well as the extent of his influence. He needs background to be understood. Giving this opens fresh perspectives on much recent intellectual history. Crowley A Beginners Guide presents his main ideas in a straightforward and accessible format, with drawings and diagrams to place them in their historical context. It relates him to contemporary movements in art and scholarship. It describes his relationship to modernism and postmodernism, and his role in the counterculture of the sixties, as well as his continuing influence today. Interspersed are entertaining stories of his life and reputation. Brilliantly illustrated by John Higgins, Crowley A Beginners Guide, is a highly accessible guide to this fascinating, complex and controversial figure. It neither promotes nor condemns him, presenting hostile as well as favourable views of his character and achievement. John S Moore is a freelance writer and independent scholar living in London. He is the author of Aleister Crowley: A Modern Master (Mandrake of Oxford, 2009) and Nietzsche An Interpretation, (AuthorsOnline Ltd, 2011) and has written on Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Edward Bulwer-Lytton among others. More information at www.johnsmoore.co.uk/ John Patrick Higgins is a writer and illustrator. He is the author of The Narwhal and Other stories. His second collection will be published later in the year. He writes art criticism for various magazines and is Creative Director of Shot Glass Theatre Company. He lives in Belfast, which he continues to find extraordinary. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: A Study Guide for T. C. Boyle's "Greasy Lake" Gale, Cengage Learning, 2012 A Study Guide for T. C. Boyle's Greasy Lake, excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: The Enlightenment Kieron O'Hara, 2012-12-01 Blamed for the bloody disasters of the 20th century: Auschwitz, the Gulags, globalisation, Islamic terrorism; heralded as the harbinger of reason, equality, and the end of arbitrary rule, the Enlightenment has been nothing if not divisive. To this day historians disagree over when it was, where it was, and what it was (and sometimes, still is). Kieron O'Hara deftly traverses these conflicts, presenting the history, politics, science, religion, arts, and social life of the Enlightenment not as a simple set of easily enumerated ideas, but an evolving conglomerate that spawned a very diverse set of thinkers, from the radical Rousseau to the conservative Burke. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Identity Gerald Izenberg, 2019-03-08 Identity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea is the first comprehensive history of identity as the answer to the question, who, or what, am I? It covers the century from the end of World War I, when identity in this sense first became an issue for writers and philosophers, to 2010, when European political leaders declared multiculturalism a failure just as Canada, which pioneered it, was hailing its success. Along the way the book examines Erik Erikson's concepts of psychological identity and identity crisis, which made the word famous; the turn to collective identity and the rise of identity politics in Europe and America; varieties and theories of group identity; debates over accommodating collective identities within liberal democracy; the relationship between individual and group identity; the postmodern critique of identity as a concept; and the ways it nonetheless transformed the social sciences and altered our ideas of ethics. At the same time the book is an argument for the validity and indispensability of identity, properly understood. Identity was not a concept before the twentieth century because it was taken for granted. The slaughter of World War I undermined the honored identities of prewar Europe and, as a result, the idea of identity as something objective and stable was thrown into question at the same time that people began to sense that it was psychologically and socially necessary. We can't be at home in our bodies, act effectively in the world, or interact comfortably with others without a stable sense of who we are. Gerald Izenberg argues that, while it is a mistake to believe that our identities are givens that we passively discover about ourselves, decreed by God, destiny, or nature, our most important identities have an objective foundation in our existential situation as bodies, social beings, and creatures who aspire to meaning and transcendence, as well as in the legitimacy of our historical particularity. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology Andrew Hass, David Jasper, Elisabeth Jay, 2007-03-15 A defining volume of essays in which leading international scholars apply an interdisciplinary approach to the long and evolving relationship between English Literature and Theology. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Introducing Postmodernism Richard Appignanesi, Chris Garratt, 2003 Postmodernism is the maddeningly enigmatic concept which is supposed to describe our cultural condition the world over. In this newly updated edition the author asks what this over-used term means in 2003 and beyond. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Literary Theory For Beginners Mary Klages, 2017-05-15 Have you heard the terms structuralism and deconstruction and postmodernism but aren’t really sure what they mean? Have you taken a whole course on literary criticism but are still feeling lost? Here’s the book you need to sort it all out—and enjoy doing so! In Literary Theory For Beginners, Mary Klages takes you into her classroom, cuts through the jargon, and explains the ABCs (and the DEFs as well) in terms you can get your head around. Her breadth of knowledge, her unique skills as a teacher, and the delightful illustrations of Frank Reynoso help us understand why literature matters, how it affects us, and how it reflects history, culture, and diversity. Here are ways of thinking about literature—not just reading it—methods of study and frameworks of interpretation from classical humanism all the way up to psychoanalysis, gender and queer theory, race, postcolonialism, and, yes, postmodernism With wit and wisdom, Klages takes on the two most frequently asked questions about literature and makes it all fun: What does the work MEAN? (What is the deeper, hidden, or symbolic meaning? Did the author intend all these meanings? Are any and all meanings present in the text? Are all meanings equally valid?) What does the work DO? (Why is literature important? What effect does it have on the reader? How can literature be a force for social change?) So sit back, relax, and take it all in! |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: The Beginner's Guide to Intensive Care Nitin Arora, Shondipon K. Laha, 2018-06-14 ‘...provides an excellent introduction to the management of acute illness for all clinical staff, and a solid foundation for those who choose to make ICM a fulfilling life-long career.’ From the Foreword by Julian Bion, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University of Birmingham Ideal for any medic or health professional embarking upon an intensive care rotation or specialism, this simple bedside handbook provides handy, pragmatic guidance to the day-to-day fundamentals of working in an intensive care unit, often a daunting prospect for the junior doctor, nurse and allied health professional encountering this challenging environment for the first time. Thoroughly updated, the second edition addresses recent and future developments in a variety of areas and is now organised into easy-to-read sections with clearly outlined learning goals. New topics added include sepsis, ARDS, refractory hypoxia, the role of allied health professionals, post ICU syndrome and follow up, and consent and capacity including new DOLS guidance. The book is authored by world-renowned contributors and edited by established consultants in the field of intensive care medicine. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: The MacIntyre Reader Kelvin Knight, 1998-10-23 Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the most controversial philosophers and social theorists of our time. He opposes liberalism and postmodernism with the teleological arguments of an updated Thomistic Aristotelianism. It is this tradition, he claims, which presents the best theory so far about the nature of rationality, morality and politics. This is the first Reader of MacIntyre's work. It includes extracts from and synopses of two famous books from the 1980s, After Virtue and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, as well as the whole of several shorter works (one published for the first time in English) and two interviews. Taken together, these constitute not only a representative collection of his work but also the most powerful and accessible presentation of his arguments yet available. The Reader also includes a summary, by the editor, of the development of MacIntyre's central ideas, and an extensive guide to further reading. Students will find the book a useful guide to MacIntyre's case against both capitalist institutions and academic orthodoxies. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Cultural Studies Jeff Lewis, 2008-03-17 Praise for the first edition: This is a great introduction and contribution to the subject. It is unusually wide-ranging, covering the historical development of cultural theory and deftly highlighting key problems that just won′t go away. - Matthew Hills, Cardiff University To say that the scope of the book′s coverage is wide-ranging would be an under-statement. Few texts come to mind that have attempted such a thorough overview of the central tenets of cultural studies. - Stuart Allan, Bournemouth University This fully revised edition of the best selling introduction to cultural studies offers students an authoritative, comprehensive guide to cultural studies. Clearly written and accessibly organized the book provides a major resource for lecturers and students. Each chapter has been extensively revised and new material covers globalization, the post 9/11 world and the new language wars. The emphasis upon demonstrating the philosophical and sociological roots of cultural studies has been retained along with boxed entries on key concepts and issues. Particular attention is paid to demonstrating how cultural studies clarifies issues in media and communication studies, and there are chapters on the global mediasphere and new media cultures. This is a tried and tested book which has been widely used wherever cultural studies is taught. It is an indispensable undergraduate text and one that will appeal to postgraduates seeking a ′refresher′ which they can dip into. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Music Theory For Beginners R. Ryan Endris, 2015-10-20 Learning to read and write music is very similar to learning a new language. Music theory is the study of the fundamental elements of music and how it is written. Music Theory For Beginners was developed for anyone interested in learning to read and write music, a task that can be quite daunting for novices. This book, however, will allay any fears and set you on the path to learning what all those dots, lines, and symbols actually mean. It provides the necessary scholarly muscle to entice and inform the reader, yet it does not require any prior knowledge of music or force the reader to wade through hundreds of pages of jargon and details. Whether your goal is to gain a cursory understanding of music, become fluent in reading music, or start composing your own music, this text will provide everything you need for a solid foundation in music theory. Anyone can pick up Music Theory For Beginners and instantly start learning about—and understanding—music theory. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Foucault For Beginners Lydia Alix Fillingham, 2000 The documentary comic books of the For Beginners series deal with complex and serious subjects. They attempt to untimidate and uncomplicate the great ideas and work of great thinkers. The movements and concepts dealt with are placed in their historical, political and intellectual contexts. The books are painstakingly researched, humourouly written and enlivened with classic comic-strip illustrations, photographs, paintings, etc. The range of subjects covered is truly vast and varied Malcom X and the New Age guru Castenanda, Shakespeare and Foucault, Jewish Holocaust and Arab and Israel, Structuralism and Biology. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Popular Culture in Ancient Rome J. P. Toner, 2013-04-25 The mass of the Roman people constituted well over 90% of the population. Much ancient history, however, has focused on the lives, politics and culture of the minority elite. This book helps redress the balance by focusing on the non-elite in the Roman world. It builds a vivid account of the everyday lives of the masses, including their social and family life, health, leisure and religious beliefs, and the ways in which their popular culture resisted the domination of the ruling elite. The book highlights previously under-considered aspects of popular culture of the period to give a fuller picture. It is the first book to take fully into account the level of mental health: given the physical and social environment that most people faced, their overall mental health mirrored their poor physical health. It also reveals fascinating details about the ways in which people solved problems, turning frequently to oracles for advice and guidance when confronted by difficulties. Our understanding of the non-elite world is further enriched through the depiction of sensory dimensions: Toner illustrates how attitudes to smell, touch, and noise all varied with social status and created conflict, and how the emperors tried to resolve these disputes as part of their regeneration of urban life. Popular Culture in Ancient Rome offers a rich and accessible introduction to the usefulness of the notion of popular culture in studying the ancient world and will be enjoyed by students and general readers alike. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Adorno Stefan Müller-Doohm, 2015-10-09 'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. ‘It can only be defined in a living context together with others.’ In this major new biography, Stefan Müller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich and comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno's life and career, from his childhood and student years to his years in emigration in the United States and his return to postwar Germany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range of Adorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, music theory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources from Adorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as a whole. Müller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some of the most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstanding biography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Hackerspaces Sarah R. Davies, 2017-03-16 A new industrial revolution. The age of making. From bits to atoms. Many people are excited by the possibilities offered by new fabrication technologies like 3D printers, and the way in which they are being used in hacker and makerspaces. But why is the power of hacking and making an idea whose time has come? Hackerspaces: Making the Maker Movement takes the rise of the maker movement as its starting point. Hacker and makerspaces, fab labs, and DIY bio spaces are emerging all over the world. Based on a study of hacker and makerspaces across the US, the book explores cultures of hacking and making in the context of wider social changes, arguing that excitement about the maker movement is not just about the availability of new technologies, but the kinds of citizens we are expected to be. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: RE: Reading the Postmodern Robert David Stacey, 2011-01-14 It would be difficult to exaggerate the worldwide impact of postmodernism on the fields of cultural production and the social sciences over the last quarter century—even if the concept has been understood in various, even contradictory, ways. An interest in postmodernism and postmodernity has been especially strong in Canada, in part thanks to the country’s non-monolithic approach to history and its multicultural understanding of nationalism, which seems to align with the decentralized, plural, and open-ended pursuit of truth as a multiple possibility as outlined by Jean-François Lyotard. In fact, long before Lyotard published his influential work The Postmodern Condition in 1979, Canadian writers and critics were employing the term to describe a new kind of writing. RE: Reading the Postmodern marks a first cautious step toward a history of Canadian postmodernism, exploring the development of the idea of the postmodern and debates about its meaning and its applicability to various genres of Canadian writing, and charting its decline in recent years as a favoured critical trope. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Postmodern Hollywood M. Keith Booker, 2007-07-30 Postmodernism is essential to American culture today. We can see its manifestations on billboards and on television; we can hear its tone on the radio and in everyday conversation; and we can even sense its outlook in how we live our lives. This volume presents an accessible and brief summary of postmodernism, especially as it pertains to American cinema-one of the central players and leading lights in the development of this cultural attitude. Four distinct sections investigate postmodernist fragmentation, musical use, and pastiches of previous television shows and cinematic genres in such films as Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, and Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. Discussions of the phenomenon of postmodernism have established certain characteristics that are typical of postmodernist culture. These characteristics include formal fragmentation, a tendency toward a particular kind of nostalgia, and the use of materials and styles borrowed from previous films and other cultural products. This volume presents a brief summary of the characteristics that have typically been associated with postmodernism, especially as they pertain to film. It illustrates those characteristics with discussions of a wide variety of American films of the past thirty years, noting how those films participate in the phenomenon of postmodernism. Emphasis is on popular, commercial films, rather than the more esoteric, experimental products that have sometimes been associated with postmodern film. Booker's work contains detailed discussions of a wide variety of American films—including classics like Sullivan's Travels and The Last Picture Show, and recent successes such as Scream, Natural Born Killers, Memento, Moulin Rouge, and Fight Club—noting how these films participate in the phenomenon of postmodernism, and how they have helped to shape its current form. |
| postmodernism a beginner's guide: Latino Immigrants in the United States Ronald L. Mize, Grace Peña Delgado, 2012-02-06 This timely and important book introduces readers to the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States - Latinos - and their diverse conditions of departure and reception. A central theme of the book is the tension between the fact that Latino categories are most often assigned from above, and how those defined as Latino seek to make sense of and enliven a shared notion of identity from below. Providing a sophisticated introduction to emerging theoretical trends and social formations specific to Latino immigrants, chapters are structured around the topics of Latinidad or the idea of a pan-ethnic Latino identity, pathways to citizenship, cultural citizenship, labor, gender, transnationalism, and globalization. Specific areas of focus include the 2006 marches of the immigrant rights movement and the rise in neoliberal nativism (including both state-sponsored restrictions such as Arizona’s SB1070 and the hate crimes associated with Minutemen vigilantism). The book is a valuable contribution to immigration courses in sociology, history, ethnic studies, American Studies, and Latino Studies. It is one of the first, and certainly the most accessible, to fully take into account the plurality of experiences, identities, and national origins constituting the Latino category. |
Postmodernism - Wikipedia
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no …
Postmodernism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sep 30, 2005 · That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, …
Postmodernism | Definition, Doctrines, & Facts | Britannica
Apr 21, 2025 · postmodernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; …
What is Postmodernism? – Introduction to Philosophy
With Postmodernism, we leave the certainty of a single, integrated, and sense-making narrative, and we enter into a period cut adrift from certainty, plunged into “multiple, incompatible, …
What is Postmodernism? | Definitions, Examples & Analysis
Mar 12, 2023 · Postmodernism is a movement which emerged in the late twentieth century, characterised by suspicion of a universal ‘truth’, which had dominated Western philosophy …
Postmodernism in Sociology: Characteristics, & Examples - Simply Psychology
In sociology, postmodernism is a perspective that emphasizes the social construction of reality, the role of language and discourse in shaping knowledge, and the fragmentation of identities …
Postmodernism and Its Critics – Anthropology
The term “postmodernism” is somewhat controversial since many doubt whether it can ever be dignified by conceptual coherence. For instance, it is difficult to reconcile postmodernist …
Postmodernism - Tate
Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction against the ideas and values of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed modernism's dominance in cultural theory and practice …
Explainer: what is postmodernism? - The Conversation
Jan 2, 2014 · Postmodernism is best understood as a questioning of the ideas and values associated with a form of modernism that believes in progress and innovation.
Postmodernism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Postmodernism. Postmodernism is a style of doing philosophy that is often distinguished from the analytic style. The Postmodern era is the time period when postmodernism was popular, …
Postmodernism - Wikipedia
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no …
Postmodernism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sep 30, 2005 · That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, …
Postmodernism | Definition, Doctrines, & Facts | Britannica
Apr 21, 2025 · postmodernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; …
What is Postmodernism? – Introduction to Philosophy
With Postmodernism, we leave the certainty of a single, integrated, and sense-making narrative, and we enter into a period cut adrift from certainty, plunged into “multiple, incompatible, …
What is Postmodernism? | Definitions, Examples & Analysis
Mar 12, 2023 · Postmodernism is a movement which emerged in the late twentieth century, characterised by suspicion of a universal ‘truth’, which had dominated Western philosophy …
Postmodernism in Sociology: Characteristics, & Examples - Simply Psychology
In sociology, postmodernism is a perspective that emphasizes the social construction of reality, the role of language and discourse in shaping knowledge, and the fragmentation of identities …
Postmodernism and Its Critics – Anthropology
The term “postmodernism” is somewhat controversial since many doubt whether it can ever be dignified by conceptual coherence. For instance, it is difficult to reconcile postmodernist …
Postmodernism - Tate
Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction against the ideas and values of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed modernism's dominance in cultural theory and practice …
Explainer: what is postmodernism? - The Conversation
Jan 2, 2014 · Postmodernism is best understood as a questioning of the ideas and values associated with a form of modernism that believes in progress and innovation.
Postmodernism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Postmodernism. Postmodernism is a style of doing philosophy that is often distinguished from the analytic style. The Postmodern era is the time period when postmodernism was popular, …
