Apuntes legados 08/10/2021

After the second world war a time of stability and economic prosperity was enjoyed in the usa
it was in the context of the cold war in which the usa and the soviet union engaged in a race of
warfare technology but the average americans enjoyed the many advances in transports and
communications as well as material abundance it was a time of homogeneous consumerism
also known as the affluent society

Fashion stressed standar notion of feiminity thin waists and rounded hips and masculinity
broad square shoulders

Advertising and television and radio shows focused on domesticity and familiar bonds any idea
or product that suggested opposition to the image of the average American white male
heterosexual married with a family and a profession became immediately suspicious

Racial relations became increasingly violent despite the school integration decided by the
supreme court in 1953

Economic and social progress did not reach all races and classes on equal terms it rather
helped to widen the disparity between the privileged and disadvantaged

While the economically favored moved out of the urban areas to the suburbs racial ghettos
proliferated in the cities

By refusing to give up her seat to a while man on a Montgomery alabama city bus in 1955
black seamstress Rosa Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement in the united states

The leaders of the local black community organized a bus boycott that began the day parks
was convicted of violating the segregation laws led by a young rev dr martin luther king jr the
boycott lasted more than a year and ended only when the us supreme court ruled that bus
segregation was unconstitutional over the next half century parks became a nationally
recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end the entrenched racial
segregation

tRock and roll which sprang from American ragtime and blues was born with elvis Presley first
recording in 1954 it soon became associated with a rebellion against conformity rock music
and rockers incamated the same self-realization and independence as the beat ideology they
chose the margins of the establishment and rejected mainstream USA

the sixties as a cultural period is said to begin with the advent of John f kennedy to the
presidency of the USA in 1960 the ending date of the period is considered to be 1973 the year
of president Nixon resignation and the end of the Vietnam war the decade proved to be one of
the important

The Vietnam war added a new component of friction to the disturbed climate that had set in
throughout the states this war had a political and emotional impact on the American society it
divided the nation entailing an entire loss of innocence and idealism it also reflected a deep
contradiction between the ideals of democracy and freedom they wanted to personify and the
atrocities of the war the Vietnam year therefore endowed cynicism of the modernist legacy of
disillusionment
Elaine t may has summarized the results of the antiwar movement for the us society when the
antiwar movement exploded in protest agains the Vietnam war so did al the other movement
s against cold war containment the feimisnt movement the antinuclear movement and those
movements that were agains the different rules laws and so

The years affected the sexual attitude after the ww2 sexual intercourse was only approved of
when it was heterosexual

Betty friedans was a groundbreaking study of the condition of American womanhood it

reflected the frustration experienced by women in domestic roles these were its opening lines
buscalo en internet

Friedan book contributed to the transformation of la conciencia that was already under
revision it triggered the second wave of feminis and illuminated the lives and works of
manythinkers and artist around the world specific strives of the feminist activism or the strikes
were the adquisition of a personal voice to claim ones position in society and control the
female ody

The sexual revolution in the term frequently used to refer to the specific demands for
tpremantal sex and brith control

Bra-burning became the one of the most illustrative symbols of feminis protest

The end of the 1960 also witnessed a rise of activism as concerns lesbians and gay rights under
the motto gay is good many homosexual attempted to reform laws that criminalized
homosexual actis

The stonewall riots which started on the evening of June 27 1969 became the symbol of a new
militance they marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement

That evening the new yourk city police raided a popular greemwocj village gay bar

For many thinkers postmodernity began in the 1960 these contradictory but highly stimulant
year

The term postmodern began to be ultered in the academic sphere as part of the discourse that
questioned intolerance power and authority

Apuntes 13/10/2021

As a term postmodernis embraces many different modes many different modes and moods so
it is very difficult to define it through one single meaning critics agree that it does not follow
after modernism but from modernism postmodernism would therefore be only an extension
or a late mode of modernism while modernism questioned reality and the selfs perception of it
postmodernis emphasizes identity and construction of the self it shows an interest in popular
art in marginal discourses and voices that were unknown to modernism

Modernist features can be found in postmodernist works such as fragmentation or viewpoint

experiments however some overall differences can be detected between both movements

- Modernist texts attempted to impose an aesthetic order on an incoherent existence

while postmodern texts delight in anarchy and playfulness
 - Readers of modernist texts frequently found the necessity to reconstruct from
fragmentation interior monologues or anachronies readers of postmodern texts face
the fact that his or her method of reading and making sense is inadequate and must be
deconstructed readers have to scrutinize destabilize meaning
- While modernist authours sought newness and uniqueness postmodern authors
attempt creation that rely on previously created patterns
- During modernism meaning and authority were interrelated when postmodern
thought suspects any form of authority histrocial political cultural meaning is devalued
and defamiliarization in the construction of meaning is sought

Literary postmodernism particularly fictional pieces deny the existence of universally valid
system of belief and claim the collapse of intellectual authority French philosopher jean
François lyotard after whose the postmodern condition postmodernism was baptized argued
that the postmodern condition is defined by this skepticism by the incredulity toward
metannarives that is all those gran discourses that legitimize knowledge without questioning
the institutions that lie behind it

The idea that lies behind questonen metanarratives is that the totality of the word cannot be
assimilated nor accounted for with one such system of discourse so many postmodern works
will be invested with a strong epistemological component on many occasions the pot itself
being designed as detective quest

The search for truth and knowledge is thus questioned because the system of ideas normally
employed proves inadequate multiplicity of discourses and worlds replace the old philosophies

Jacques derrida states that language itself the bridge between the self and the world mediates
this relationship between the truth and knowledge he denounces the cult for reason or
logocentrism the epistemological system that takes for granted the authority of the word and
the mind thus postmodern texts show language as an arbitrary and volatile system
interrogating the linguistic codes

Frederic jameson proposes that postmodernism is the result and the expression of lat capitalist
culture which is dominated by the presence of multination corporation and the triump of mass
communications over the written word in a cultural landscape where hyperreality and media
reproduction eclipse reality the faithful imitation of such reality.

The social upheavals and philosophical preoccupation that led to postmodernism resulted in
an intellectual panorama that could be summarized as follows

- The complex nature of subjectivity and identity

- The relationship between the real and the imaginary
- History and meaning as constructs
- Skepticism about knowledge scholarship and information
The termin postmodern was first applied to some narratives of the sixties that consciously
interrogated narrative conventions but it soon spread to all those texts that paid attention to
the following issues

- Literature and metanarratives

- Frame-breaking
- The voices of minorities
- The impact of the media and technology

Literatue and metanarratives

Postmodernism questions narrative in its broad sense any discourse used to account for
something thus history sciendce philosophy religion and journalism are interrogated and
contested for their claim to university or their search of transcendence as regards history for
example official story discourse started to be much questions after the droppiong of the
atomic bombs in 1956 the discourses of reason and science were particularly the discourses of
reason and science were particularly damaged after the second world war

Postmordernism holds that there cannot exist one single discourse to apprehend and explain
the totality of the world and only a plurality of discourses can therefore account for a plurality
of worlds

The postmodernis outlook it particular derrida deconstructuin has affect the meaning of
literary works by denying their meaning as based on the relationship between language and
the world since language is only an instrument that may mediated language is no longer
perceived as a key to existence but as a shaper of existence in turn subject to a variety of
external condition therefore the meaning of text cannot be said to depend on the author even
on the reader for linguistic code that has configured such text is a fluent indefinite entity

The sign as a double faces emblem in the manner of Saussure theory is attacked in many
postmodern works along with it literary use

In Patricia Waugh’s words although linguistic signs normal denote the non-linguistic entities for
which they are sign this not the case with literary fiction

Metafiction that is self reflexivie fiction that mirros the processes by which it is constructed
and read is a major trend in postmodernism literature

Metafictive works suc as Auster city of glass or Thomas Pynchon the crying of lot 49 invite
deliberation on these processes on ficitions basic components such as plot or genre and on the
expectation created in the reader by force of custom

In literary criticism a frame is any plan structure or support that underlies a literarty text
stories as well as history or life itself is constructed perceived and understood though frames
that organize the contact between the subject and the universe in political as well as in literary
terms frame breaking attempts to try bare these conventional frames that construct and
condition life and its comprehension
Among the frames that constitute the literary txt the author as creator as well as fundamental
figure in the literary process is on of the most discussed by postmodern works

The real author steps into the fictional world commenting not on the content of the story but
on the act of narration on the construction of the story

If traditional ¡
notions of the text author and meaning become shifty authority that is to say the authors
creation and control of the work is equally interrogated

Probably the content of the postmodernism could be insignificant buut (lo de arriba)

Reader find themselves active parts of the process of meaning

Boundaries of time place and situation are challenged in the postmodern text as it becomes an
open space unlike previous notions of literary works as closed pieces beginning in the author
and ending in the reader

The postmodern text offers intertextual connection to other texts becoming part of an
immense body of texts that shapes its reading thus the traditional idea of authority reques
revision for the agent wrote the text does not own total control over the structure and the
meaning of his or her text

Such disconnection dissolves the notion of a preconceivd meaning in the hands of an authority
and places the reader as a dynamic factor in the literary process readers are creator of
meaning

Despite the political measures proclaimed in the 1960 to alleviate racial inequalities and
intolerance racism still haunts the diverse racial communities living in the US

A combination of demographic transformations and cultural movements has brought the

voices of minorities to the forefront calling attention to the plurality of American life and
experience and questioning the idea of identity

Racial ethnic questions share this space of cultural pluralism with class and gender issues for all
minority groups experience some degree of social or cultural inequality

Notions of identity therefore will play a fundamental part in the imaginative record of
dominant and minority groups ion the united states the loss of center and authority in this and
other matter has spread to the periphery of US society where racial ethnic gender class and
sexual minorities had previously been defined by their opposition and dominant stand from
the 60s on works by native american latino writers gay and lesbians Asian americans and other
previously silenced authors have claimed their version of history and Americaness the
disintegration of the idea of a unified history of the united states has given way to other
histories other narratives and other voices.

Identity seems to lack a center an unchaigin point of referencie it is now understood as fluid as
rhizome like

The philosophical term rhizome was developed in the 1970 by gilles deleuze and felix guattari
the idea stems from the field of botany and has since been metaphorically applied to the
analysis of multiple identity
For guattari a rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from root and radicles
bukbs and tubers and rhizome

From the decentered perspective the marginal and what I will be calling the ex-centric take on
new significance in the light of the implied recognition that our culture is not really the
homogeneous monolith that is middle class male heterosexual white western we might have
assumed the concept of alienated otherness based on binary oppositions that conceal
hierarchies gives way as I have argus to that of differences that is to the assention not of
centralized sameness but of decentralized community another postmodern paradox

Ib the last decaded the cultural plurality of the united states has spawned of profusion of
literary works where authors employ innovative postmodern strategies to describe and affirm
their identity they are usually hybrid emulating the pastiche techniques of contemporary artist
via the combination of poetry and prose of imagination and document this literary strategy
defies those texts created by dominant culture in which the concepts of identify or history are
presented as united phenomena Not only are traditional literary matters subverted but
ontological issues are also discussed to challenge the prevalling interpretation of existence and
the position of the subject in relation to the cosmos.

Rousseaus begins his confessions with a most daring preface

UNIT 3 Native American Literatures

Native American writers suffered the internal colonizations of those who for centuries
deprived them of their land and silenced them American literature largely offered the unique
perspective of the colonizers and conquerors thus overlooking the side of the dispossessed
and annihilated it has frequently offered and altered view of US identity either by
romanticizing or by decrying its customs and beliefs American Indian literature can be said to
be based on in some cases it is a retelling of the traditional tales of the monfoid tribes that
populated North America

Their rituals and myths sacred narratives creations stories and trickster tales have developed
into a modern native americans literature that combines traditions and modernity

The richness and variety of this literature allows for a groups of recurring themes that define it
survival of American Indian culture as opposed to the euramerican one the relation of
language and tradition to identity the recuperation of a harmonious relationship with nature
and the healing poewer of storytelling

The so called initiator of the literary native American renaissance is navare scott Momaday as
with other previous renascences the term implies recovery but this particular revival also calls
for political restitution its beginnings are dated in the mid sixties when American Indian
activism energized the publication of a variety of articles poems stories and nonfiction books
that retold the history of native americans

Momaday stated in the mand made of words that he had to imagine himself as an American
Indian and initate a process of self construction after his grandmother¡s deat and Indian is an
idea given man has of himself
In response to the unitated states government policy that attempts to systematize American
Indian personal and communal identities Momaday proposed the trope blood memory to
define idetntity in imaginative terms

Thus agains the blood quantum standard of native identification this and other authors
employ and celebrate blood memory as recuperator of the racial collective memory passed
down through oral tradition

The literatures of Multiculturalism

The motto tha tsurrounds the American eagle on the back of the us one dollar bill says which
means the on from the many that expression comprises the multicultural nature of American
society making an attempt to amalgamate distinctions owing to race gender class religion
language so forth the texture of us history is made of slavery migration genocide crossbreeds
assimilation and racism wht seems an irregular effort to come to terms with the ideal plurality

In n article entitled the metting pot vegetable soup and matinini cocktail competing
explanations of us cultural pluralism Edward m griffing presented three competing theories
about the organization of social groups in the us resorting to three parallel tropes

1- The melting pot it was the starting metaphor in the 18 th and 19th centuries it entailed
the assimilation of the new territory and the eradcation of anything old that the
newcomer may bring along the outcome of the melting pot was a new American self
yet the violence of the 1960 disagreed with the apparent consensus announced by the
melting carried out in the pot the new American man rejected any other form of
americannes which was not white male or anglo saxon
2- The vegetable soup thus in the sixties a claim towars the unmeltable identities that
could retrain their specific qualities and nonetheless remain American the racial and
sexual revolts demanded new frames of mind and subsequent new tropes recent
cultural theories define culture in terms of hegemony that is they understand social
groups as separated in two major categories the dominant and the dominates
hegemonous practices such as language ethics or the media keep and oppressed
heterogeneous class in opposition to a dominat class
3- The martini cocktail unity versus plurality disappears to give preferntalty to dualism
griffin uses this label due to the permanent presence of the twoc basic ingradients one
of which will remain as the dominant majority the particularities of each cultural group
integratin the dominated minority are integrated into single category

Due to its concern with issues of identity postmodernity claims for a discourse that may
recover the specificity of every citizen the sameness and amalgamation suggested by the term
American have been challenged by hyphenated construction such as African American Asian
American Mexican American contemporary usage of American English avoud hyphenating thse
construction but the expression is sometimes used to stress racial or cultural difference
( hyphenated American)

Assimilation and acculturation are relevant aspects to take into account when delaing with
American minorities especially with ethnic and racial groups the history of the US has been a
dialectic process of adaptation to a dominant culture and preservation of one groups
differenttiatin aspects the attachment to original roots and the preservation of a non American
identity are manifested in several ways ghettoes reservation barrios are geographican
evidence of the resistnce to completely lose ones origin language and linguistic preservation is
another mode of resistance agains the complete dissolution of origins that is the reason why
some authors have decided to write in the language of ther ancestors

The literatues of the us forced a severe revision of the canon during the 20 th century the
writing emerged of the diverse minority groups coincide above all other bond in their attention
to their dual identity they would develop formal and thematic strategies to deal with the issue
of identity in a variety of attitudes American literature has now broadened its scope to include
those social segments that had remained invisible for traditional systematization and
evaluations of US text