Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
"Kim's study, then, points the way toward a consideration of difference that is not mired in relativism without ethics, but that appreciates real social conditions as they influence and particularize experience." - MELUS
"In this marvelous book, Kim attempts what we rarely see in the innumerable critiques of postmodernism available to us from progressive, radical scholars: she constructs her case by drawing on the work of complex, sophisticated writers from diverse traditions and contexts - mainstream American, Asian American and African. This is superb work of comparative literary studies and cultural criticism. It is bound to exert some influence across several fields including postcolonial studies, American studies and the discourses of race, identity and agency." - Biodun Jeyifo, Professor, African and African American Studies and Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University
"In Critiquing Postmodernism, Kim offers a searing critique of the postmodern politics of difference. Ranging across critical theory, political discourse, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Kim incisively examines two conspicuous limitations of what she calls otherness postmodernism - an approach to otherness that ironically ends up flattening differences into sameness and an overwhelming emphasis on cultural and aesthetic rather than institutional or political-economic critique. As a consequence, Kim forcefully argues, otherness postmodernism continues to perpetuate the reified and essentialist notions of race that it claims to supersede. The most unexpected revelations of this study emerge from Kim s juxtaposition of theories and texts that are seldom discussed together, such as the concepts of radical democracy propounded by Laclau and Mouffe along with Omi and Winant, or the novels of Thomas Pynchon, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Bessie Head. International in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, Critiquing Postmodernism is indispensable reading for everyone interested in the workings of racial difference in contemporary critical theory, postmodern literature, U.S. ethnic studies, and postcolonial studies." - Madhu Dubey, author of Signs and Cities: Black Literary
Postmodernism
"The novel is a most wondrous time (and place) machine. It is all-encompassing and polymorphous. It has a notable capacity to adapt to different media and epochs and tastes. And in its generous capaciousness it is also a teaching device in all matters concerning the universe and humankind. Kim is the rara avis who has entered this territory and has come back with something new and of value to tell us about it. And while making a deep analysis of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity s Rainbow, and Bessie Head's A Question of Power, she is gifting us with an astute study and rejection of some of the most widespread postmodernist and multiculturalist pieties. This feat will engage both specialists and general readersinterested in the marvelous and delicately composed mental engine that is the novel." - Frederick Luis Aldama, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, The Ohio State University
About the author
SUE J. KIM is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Critiquing Postmodernism in Contemporary Discourses of Race
Authors: Sue J. Kim
Series Title: American Literature Readings in the 21st Century
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230103962
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Sue J. Kim 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-230-61874-9Published: 13 January 2010
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-38140-1Published: 13 January 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-10396-2Published: 23 November 2009
Series ISSN: 2634-579X
Series E-ISSN: 2634-5803
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 196
Topics: Postcolonial/World Literature, Literary Theory, Cultural Theory, Twentieth-Century Literature, Social Structure, Social Inequality, Postmodern Philosophy