But "metanarrative" has another, probably more common, meaning as well. It refers to the stories or narratives used to explain the world around us. My dad and I were talking about postmodernism not long ago, which has everything to do with metanarrative. So does structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism, colonialism, patriarchy, and virtually any sort of critical theory that I can think of.
I'm trying to be all erudite and technical here, but I'm really only posting this stuff because I think it's interesting and useful, and because I like the clarity of the following introduction to Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition.
This is an excerpt from Literary Theory: An Anthology, published by Blackwell and edited by Rivkin and Ryan:
"Jean-Francios Lyotard's The Post-Modern Condition (1979) announced a new moment in cultural history called 'Post-Modernism.' Post-Modernism is skeptical regarding reason, sees technology as an instrument as much of destruction as of progress, and rejects the premises of industrial society. Lyotard also characterizes Post-Modernism as skepticism toward what he calls 'metanarratives.' By that, he means stories about the world that strive to sum it all up on one account. The Post-Modern temperament finds such conclusive stories unsuited to the world. Instead, according to Lyotard, Post-Modernism favors seeing the world in more rhetorical terms as a field of contending smaller narratives, where people strive to make their point of view and their interests paramount by making their narratives more convincing."
"Post-Modernism is faulted for not taking a stand on issues of value. All values are topics of debate, and the debate should, according to Lyotard, continue endlessly. The only wrong consists of closing off debate. Values, its detractors contend, must be decided. And while all issues or problems facing society can be endlessly debated, at some point decisions need to be made regarding what values shall prevail. According to Lyotard, many such decisions are indeed made, but they usually consist of an assertion of non-rhetorical power by those in a dominant position materially in society. And such decisions always close off debate and preclude further story-telling, further rhetorical contest."
Of course the problem with rejecting all metanarrative in favor of no-narrative is that it is impossible. Interesting stuff, nonetheless.
6 comments:
Huh? I do not understand "literary criticism" at all. Every time I read someone writing about that topic, it seems as if they are randomly stringing words together, and occasionally inserting capitalization and punctuation to give the appearance of making sentences.
You mean you don't understand what literary criticism is? It seems to me to be pretty much an excuse to write about whatever theory you hold dear. You can write about linguistics (which makes sense), or colonialism (which makes some sense), or you can write about feminism, marxism, what have you. You don't even have to relate it to literature as far as I can tell.
Cultural crit and literary crit are pretty thoroughly blended. I noticed in a Film Theory text I read for a Shakespeare class that very little of the book had any direct relationship to actual films. It seemed strange to me, but there it is.
I have a really hard time reading that stuff actually, which really disappointed me as a graduate student. I thought going in that I would love it, even wanted to love it, but couldn't. Surely does make it hard to get any work done, in a scholastic sense.
Yes, I do mean that I don't understand what lit. crit. is (if it means everything, then it means nothing), but I mean more than that. When I hear post-modernists talking, or read their writing, I do not understand what they are saying. They seem to be speaking nonsense, rather like the sounds that Parker makes these days.
More than in other academic area, it has appeared to me that post-modernists suffer from rhetorical logorrhoea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhoea
Parker does not appreciate the comparison.
This post was WAY above my head--I'm too tired to try to understand it, but I do have one comment. From reading your blog, and from reading Michael's comments on yours and Jim's blogs, I can see how you and he are made for each other, and probably have many great conversations which would also go way over my head. :)
We only think we're that smart, Jamey. One of my purposes for the blog was to prove to myself that it is entirely possible to be a stay-at-home-mom and still have an active and fulfilling "life of the mind," something many of you already prove in the "alternative" class each and every Sunday morning.
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