This is a Post Modern about postmodernism

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6 THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2011
POST
WWW.THEPOST.OHIOU.EDU
PICKS
ADAM WAGNER Culture Editor | aw333507@ohiou.edu ——— Humans have found labels for their entertainment since the dawn of culture. Children are taught that the Renaissance looks like the Sistine Chapel ceiling and reads like Dante’s Inferno. They know that cubism looks like a Picasso painting and that Charles Dickens’ novels define the Industrial Age. While many of these ideas build off one another, one current school of thought — postmodernism — is more a rejection of everything that came before it, challenging cultural norms by questioning the motivations of societal movers and the role of language. The postmodern worldview has taken hold in art, dance, literature and philosophy, and understanding the way it is shaping today’s culture is useful in understanding that culture itself. One of the tenets of postmodernism, which came of its own artistically in the 1960s, is a denial of modernism — the era immediately preceding it. “Postmodernism is really tolerant of everything except for modernism, and modernism would have been their parents,” said Jared Henderson, a sophomore studying English and philosophy. “So it’s the most loving middle finger you could give your parents.” Dr. Alfred Lent, assistant professor of philosophy, said that while modernism claims to find concrete answers to philosophical quandaries, postmodernism embraces everyone’s answers and the processes that led to them. “Where modernism is truth-based, postmodernism, I think, would be social-practice-based,” Lent said. “The important thing is not that we are finding a truth because, ‘Just stop that, that was a stupid thing that we did,’ but what matters is that we just tell our tales and let those tales have the effects on our community … and we keep on telling them, keep on hearing them.” Rejection of the past and acceptance of different “answers” is demonstrated artistically in dance, said Dr. Tresa Randall, an assistant professor in the School of Dance. Randall cited Steve Paxton, who ate a sandwich and labeled it dance. “(Postmodernism) was about questioning ‘What is dance?’ and ‘Can we see someone just walking in a certain context as a dance?’” said Randall. “ And a lot of the postmodern choreographers said, ‘Yes, it is a dance. It’s still someone moving in time and space, and it draws your attention to that movement, and it doesn’t have to have lots of jumps and kicks and turns and fancy movement to be a dance.’” The conversation about the forms and structure of art is a continuing strand throughout postmodernism. In literature, it manifests itself in plot structure and narration. Henderson said that in the postmodern literature he has read, it is normal for the author to insert himself into the story in unconventional ways in an effort to gain the audience’s attention. “Then literature becomes more dynamic and it’s a conversation with the audience as opposed to telling a story. There’s feedback from the audience,” Henderson said. “That’s the idea of the postmodern novel — you write the novel with the audience in mind so that they will be able to engage in it. And (postmodernists) also like to do a collapse of traditional form.” One possible reason postmodernists intentionally destroy traditional forms is that the movement stems from the 1960s, an era of rebellion and rejection of societal structures. “It came out of a particular social, cultural environment of the ’60s …” Randall said. “So there’s a sense of breaking down conventions, rebelling against social structures and rebelling against authority. It very much has that sense of sometimes just rebelling for the sake of rebellion.” Philosophers, who have a more ordered manner of thinking, find the disorderly postmodern argument frustrating at times, leading to skepticism towards the movement, Lent said. “Postmodernism doesn’t really build effectively, that might be the criticism of it,” Lent said. “It’s good at destroying. It’s good at pointing out the shortcomings of that which it attacks. It’s good at pointing out alternative ways.”
THIS IS A POS T MOD ERN A BOUT POST MODE RNISM
“Postmodernism is really tolerant of everything except for modernism, and modernism would have been their parents. So it’s the most loving middle finger you could give your parents.”
—Jared Henderson, a sophomore studying English and philosophy
BABIES LAUGHING
Oh, she’s so sweet! Mind if I hold her for a minute? Oh, you are so cute, aren’t you? Yes you are. Oh, yes you are. For eons, young mothers attend family reunions and church services only to be bombarded by old mothers who want nothing more than to coddle their children. And for eons, girls like me have thought it was a little weird. But you should note: This is not a Post Pick about nauseating baby talk; it’s about BABIES LAUGHING. How can I contain myself? There’s a reason these toddler tickle-fests have won fame-hungry mothers thousands of dollars on America’s Funniest Home Videos for years. It’s hilarious, and on today’s version of AFV, YouTube, you can still enjoy babies’ billowing larks without the bile. —Rosie Haney
@OUDINING
Ohio University organizations have a hundred twitters. When I’m working on @ThePostCampus, it’s hard to wade through all the noise. Except, of course, for @ OUDining. The humble genius behind this Twitter posts the daily menu, saving me the hassle of riding the escalator two floors down to West 82 if they aren’t serving Creamy Tomato Tortellini soup. Better still, @ OUDining has a response to everyone musing about the dining halls, complaining about food or lamenting that they no longer have a meal plan. An unsung hero is doing me a great service for sure. —T. Paul Navera
PORTLANDIA
“The dream of the ‘90s is alive in Portland.” You can find the lyrics to this beloved web ballad in SNL-veteran Fred Armisen’s latest side-project, Portlandia. The web series, recently picked up by IFC, attempts to give the viewer a look into the hipster subculture that has taken over Greg Oden country. Clad with underground library hide-and-go seek leagues, gauge earrings you could fit a small dog through, and vegan-themed bookstores, these three-minute webisodes will leave you smiling whether or not you own a fixed gear bicycle (or whether or not you owned a fixed gear bicycle before it was cool to own a fixed gear bicycle). —Pat Holmes
aroundT
WN O
TONIGHT
Mind Fish, Gold, The Vibe, 10 p.m., Casa Cantina, 4 W. State St., free Rumpke Mt. Boys, 9 p.m., Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery, 24 W. Union St., cover Donkey Musicians Open Stage, 9 p.m., Donkey Coffee and Espresso, 17 1/2 W. Washington St., free OU Improv Comedy Show featuring Black Sheep, Inc. and Amsterdam Alliterates, 9 p.m., Bentley Hall 124, free
TOMORROW
All Request Night with DJ Party Bus, 10 p.m., Casa Cantina, 4 W. State St., free The Porters (benefit for UCM), 6 p.m., Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery, free (donations welcome) Suffering Moses Blues Band, Atom Lax, SPLANK!, 9 p.m., Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery, 24 W. Union St., free Smorgasbord 2011: music, poetry, a short play and a Magma dance party featuring DJ Conco, DJ Prime and DJ Omo, 8 p.m., Union Arts, 15 W. Union St., $2 suggested donation “Serious as Cancer” Comedy Benefit Extravaganza, 9 p.m., Donkey Coffee and Espresso, 17 1/2 W. Washington St., cover An Evening with Kamikaze, 7 p.m., Scripps Amphitheater, free
SATURDAY
Smorgasbord 2011: educational workshops featuring edible mushroom growing, DIY cosmetics, photography, online security, and electronic jam how-to, 1-4 p.m., Arts/West, 132 W. State St., $2 suggested donation Smorgasbord 2011: music and poetry all night featuring Justin Carel, 99¢ Dreamz, Zapaño, and more, 7 p.m., Court St. Basement (below GG’s Bubble Tea), 19 S. Court St., $2 suggested donation Cantina Karaoke, 10 p.m., Casa Cantina, 4 W. State St., free Friends of the Shelter Dogs Benefit, Paranormals, Whip and Tackle, Bonzai and Zach Oden, 9 p.m., Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery (brewery side), 24 W. Union St., cover Skeetones, Pharoah Loosey, Eumatik, 9 p.m., Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery (public house side), 24 W. Union St., cover