Postmodernizem modernizma

Sanford Schwartz v eseju Postmodernizem modernizma, enem temeljnih prispevkov na to temo, izpostavlja, da »obstoječa delitev na moderno in postmoderno ni nič drugega kot "razpolovljeni modernizem" in to, kar imamo za postmoderno, je zgolj pozabljena plat modernizma (Schwartz [1998], 16*). Obenem pa Schwartz upravičeno zavrača opustitev meja med obema pojmoma. Njegovo mnenje je namreč, da lahko njuno kompleksno razmerje razumemo kot nekaj produktivnega.

Če nanju pogledamo z različnih zornih kotov, se pojma zdita naravnost nezdružljiva. Rešitev problema med drugim še dodatno zamegljuje obremenjeno razmerje med modernizmom v umetnosti in različnimi tehničnimi, družbenimi in teoretičnimi nosilci Zahodne moderne. Medtem ko tisti, ki se osredotočajo na literaturo, modernizem dojemajo kot kulturno tvorbo, ki nasprotuje analitično-referenčnim modelom dominantnega Zahodnega racionalizma, drugi raziskovalci, posebno znotraj družbenih ved, pa tudi mnogi zgodovinarji in filozofi, s konceptom »modernizem« označujejo natančno te velike pripovedi in družbene modele. V teh krogih teoretične poskuse razgaljanja tovrstnih pripovedi in modelov – ki so jih v literarni vedi in v nekaterih drugih vejah humanistike prej imenovali za poststrukturalistične – imenujejo za »postmodernistične« in zanje veljajo za moteče [disruptive] na podoben način kot modernizem v umetnosti v odnosu do družbene moderne. Kot da to še ni dovolj, tudi literarna veda, ki je »postmodernizem« prvotno uporabljala kot estetsko kategorijo, termin vse bolj odpira za prej omenjene pomene, to je, ga zdaj uporablja tudi kot opis teoretičnih in filozofskih smeri (in kot tak je na nek način požrl koncept poststrukturalizma).     

Astradur Eysteinsson & Vivian Liska: Introduction: Approaching Modernism. V: Astradur Eysteinsson & Vivian Liska (eds.): Modernism. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2007; str. 3

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In a seminal essay on this issue entitled “The Postmodernity of Modernism,” Sanford Schwartz points out that “the prevailing division between modern and postmodern is simply ‘modernism cut in half,’ and what we call the postmodern is nothing other than the forgotten side of modernism” (Schwartz [1998], 16). But Schwartz also rightfully rejects the dissolution of the boundaries between the two terms. Instead, he argues that the complex relationship between the two can be made productive.

Observed from certain vantage points, the two terms may seem quite incompatible. The issue tends to be obfuscated, among other things, by the charged relations between aesthetic modernism and the various technical, social and theoretical vehicles of Western modernity. While critics who focus on literature often see modernism as a cultural formation that moves counter to the analytico-referential models of dominant Western rationality, other scholars, especially those within the social sciences, but also many historians and philosophers, in fact use the concept of “modernism” to label precisely these master narratives and social models. Critical attempts to dismantle such narratives and models — which in literary studies and some other branches of the humanities used to be called poststructuralist— are termed “postmodernist” in these camps and seen as disruptive in much the same way as aesthetic modernism tackling social modernity. To make matters even more complicated, literary studies, which initially used "postmodernism" as an aesthetic category, have increasingly opened the term to the aforementioned meaning, that is, it is now being used also as a term for critical and philosophical currents (and as such it has in a sense swallowed up the concept of poststructuralism).

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* citirano po: Sanford Schwartz. 1998. The Postmodernity of Modernism. TheFuture of Modernism. Ed. by Hugh Witemeyer. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 9–31.