Critical Modernism
Where is Post-Modernism Going? What is Post-Modernism?
5. Edition March 2007
240 Pages, Hardcover
General Reading
Short Description
Post-Modernism is now a worldwide movement in all the arts and disciplines. Post-Modern politics varies from the conviction politics of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair to the search for a new liberalism that can combine multiculturalism and universal rights. The book is divided into four sections covering the history, culture and the changing face of post-modernism. The most radical idea of this challenging book is the conclusion: the notion that the post-modern world does not mean the end of metanarratives, but something quite different. In the fifth edition of this seminal work, Charles Jencks once again updates the text applying what Post-Modern now means in a post-millennium world, that has had to face such cataclysmic events, a 9/11, the tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina.
After developing for thirty years as a movement in the arts, after being disputed and celebrated, Post-Modernism has become an integral part of the cultural landscape. In this witty overview, Charles Jencks, the first to write a book defining the subject, argues that the movement is one more reaction from within modernism critical of its shortcomings. The unintended consequences of modernisation, such as the terrorist debacle and global warming, are typical issues motivating Critical Modernism today. In a unique analysis, using many explanatory diagrams and graphs, he reveals the evolutionary, social and economic forces of this new stage of global civilisation. Critical Modernism emerges at two levels. As an underground movement, it is the fact that many modernisms compete, quarrel and criticise each other as they seek to become dominant. Secondly, when so many of these movements follow each other today in quick succession, they may reach a 'critical mass,' a Modernism², and become a conscious tradition.
Simon Jenkins, Journalist and Author: 'After 200 years of hyperactive and sometimes disastrous adolescence, Modernism finally may be growing up and coming to terms with its own problems. In this challenging work Jencks shows why, and what it may look like.'
Ian Buruma, Author and Henry R Luce Professor at Bard College: 'Charles Jencks does not necessarily court your agreement; he wants you to think, and then think again. He is an enemy of received opinions and sloppy clichés. That is what makes his latest book so provocative and such a delight to read.'
Felipe Fernandez Armesto, Professor of History, Tufts University: 'Charles Jencks never stops refreshing our minds. Now - on a subject on which his previous work seemed insuperable - he breaks new ground. He redefines postmodernism's place in modernity and, with his usual wit, clarity and fluency, he explains how and why the grandest of grand narratives - our integrated history of the universe - survives and thrives.'
Rem Koolhaas, Architect and Author: 'That Critical Modernism is a tautology turned into an oxymoron is perhaps its greatest strength: as Jencks argues, the critical and the modern certainly need each other.'
Chapter 1 ORIGINS AND BATTLES.
PM is Critical Modernism.
The Many Deaths of Modernism.
Two Views of Post-Modernism.
Post-modern Speaks Us.
Screams in the Cathedral.
Modernism as a Protestant Crusade.
Success Tames the Avant-garde.
Chapter 2 HYBRID CULTURE.
Double Coding and Irony.
Not Even Pastiche.
Complexity and the Enigmatic Signifier.
Post-modern Art - Cross-coding with Content.
Irony on the Verge of Cynicism.
Chapter 3 THE BLURRED SOCIETY.
The Rise of the Cognitariat.
The Triumph of the Muddle Class.
The Rise of Socitalism.
Cyclical, Linear and Crystalline Time.
Chapter 4 WANING NATIONS, RISING HETERARCHY.
Destructive Modernity.
The Transnational Heterarchy.
New World Order as Heterarchy.
Being Wise before the Event.
The Post-modern States.
One Cheer for the EU.
The Search for an Effective Heterarchy.
Chapter 5 COSMOGENESIS AND THE UNIVERSE PROJECT.
Belief in a Universe 13.7 Billion Years Big.
Complexity as a Measure of Quality.
Two Types of Evolution.
A Cultural Drive?.
The Universe Project.
A Jumping Universe.
Chapter 6 CRITICAL MODERNISM.
Creative to be Critical.
A Critical Iconography.
A Critical Coding.
A Critical Spirituality?
Critical Theory Carves up Doomsday Fatigue.
Critical Modernism as a Continuous Dialectic.
The White Elephant Theory of Modernism.
The Ten-year Rule and Continuous Refolution.
Hidden Tradition or Process?
Critical Modernism - a Conscious Movement?
Notes & References.
Acknowledgements.
Index.
"Thirty years on from the publication of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, its author explains why we are all modernists now." (www.BDonline.co.uk/podcast, April 07)