1. Postmodernism and Culture Contextualising Globalisation, Culture and Lifestyle Lecture IV Daniel Turner and Jenny Flinn

2. Why postmodernism? Postmodernity – another ‘buzzword’ of the 21 st century Postmodern debate sets the framework for critical, theoretical and philosophical debates in many fields (inc globalisation) (Harvey, 2000) Links to social processes and cultural forms Yet summarising postmodernism is like: ‘trying to grab jelly in a clamp’ (Bryman, 1995) ‘Do debates concerned with post-modernity amount to little more than a theoretical blind alley or do they have a significant contribution to make to our understanding of the social world?’ (Miles, 2001:83) How does postmodernity impact upon the cultural industries?

3. Modernism Links to the Enlightenment, Protestant Work Ethic and Industrial Revolution (Turner, 1991) Triumph of rational thought (Miles, 2001) Quest for freedom, order and certainty. Modernist culture: “leisure as occupying an observable space and time in society” (Rojek, 1995:38) Leisure as a social function fixed to work. Identity fixed and certain and tied to local and historical context.

4. Postmodernism Modernity: ‘is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity; it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish’ (Berman, 1982:15) Failure of modernity (Macionis and Plummer, 1997) ‘Incredulity towards metanarratives’ (Lyotard, 1984) Post-modernity or postmodernity? The collapse of certainty and boundaries

5. Postmodernism and Identity ‘the onus for the construction of such identities increasingly falls on the shoulders of the individual’ (Miles, 2001:95) A product of globalisation Giddens (1991) the reflexive project of the self ‘the snag is no longer how to discover, invent, construct, assemble (even buy) an identity, but how to prevent it from sticking’ (Bauman, 1996:24)

6. Postmodernity and Culture The dominance of imagery and the end of the ‘real’ Hyper-reality (Eco, 1986) ‘our humanity is based on nothing more than our ability to consume spectacular simulations of reality’ (Miles, 2001, p87) The collapse of boundaries and meaning – cultural stratification and significance is meaningless? Pastiche, re-hash, retro, nostalgia, ironic consumption

7. Postmodernism and Consumption ‘Strollers’, ‘players’, ‘tourists’ and ‘vagabonds’ (Bauman, 1995) Baudelaire’s (1960) ‘fláneur’ The consumption of signs and the ego- centricism of everyday life. Consumption as a way of life?

8. Critiquing postmodernism A western plaything? ‘On what basis does representation purport to reflect how consumers really interact with MTV?’ (Miles, 2001, p99) A meaningless theoretical buzzword? The ironic meta-narrative?

9. Alternative conceptualisations Postmodernism or Post-modernism? High modernity (Giddens), Liquid Modernity (Bauman) ‘The compulsive and obsessive, continuous, unstoppable, forever incomplete modernisation; the overwhelming and ineradicable, unquenchable thirst for creative destruction (or of destructive creativity, as the case might be, of ‘clearing the site’ in the name of a ‘new and improved’ design; of ‘dismantling’, ‘cutting out’, ‘phasing out’, ‘merging’ or ‘downsizing’, all for the sake of a greater capacity for doing more of the same in the future’) (Bauman, 2000, p28) We need order, we want ‘fixed’ boundaries and rules. Emergence of a risk society as a result of postmodern globalisation Finding the ‘ontological anchor’ to everyday life? – identity Finding the ‘safe’ form of risk and danger – consumption Finding the ‘meaningful’ form of hyper-reality - culture