The Passing of Postmodernism: A Spectroanalysis of the Contemporary

by Josh Toth

The Passing of Postmodernism addresses the increasingly prevalent assumption that a period marked by poststructuralism and metafiction has passed and that literature and film are once again engaging sincerely with issues of ethics and politics. In discussions of various twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers, directors, and theorists—from Michel Foucault and Slavoj Žižek to Thomas Pynchon and David Lynch—Josh Toth demonstrates that a certain utopian spirit persisted within, and actually defined, the postmodern project. Just as modernism was animated by an idealistic belief that it could finally realize the utopia beckoning on the horizon, postmodernism was compelled by an equally utopian belief that it could finally reject the possibility of all such illusory ideals. Toth argues that this specter of an impossible future is and must remain both possible and impossible, a ghostly promise of what is always still to come.

Josh Toth teaches literature and critical theory at Grant MacEwan College and is coeditor (with Neil Brooks) of The Mourning Attending the Wake of Postmodernism.

210 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2010

Reviews

[Маx Nestelieiev · Rating 4 out of 5]

непересічний аналіз конання/відходу/минання постмодернізму з аналізом критиків/критеріїв, які рили йому яму+згадками письмаків, які долучилися до цього процесу. написано з легким академізмом, але глибоко.

[Mimi Wolske · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book revolves around two main questions: Has postmodernism...finally “passed?” and, if so, what is or can be after postmodernism? Toth's answers are a little complex.

The first thing he does, and this is the purpose of chapter one, is unravel the issue that has never ceased--the issue of historical breaks and the culmination of history itself.

IF you're interested in this debate, I think you will find Toth did a pretty good job with his book. Like I said, it's complex and assumes the reader knows quite a bit about the theoretical history of institutional postmodernism.

I'd say it's worth the read at a number of levels, not least of all the way Toth situates the historical problem of postmodernism against the ongoing malaise of postmodernism’s institutional aporia...the real or simulated doubt or perplexity.

[Mohammad]

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