Postmodern Identity Research Articles

Self-portrait as mask. The case study of Gillian Wearing

This article examines Gillian Wearing’s Family Album photographic series (2003 – 2006), relating her self-portraits to the postmodern identity theories of Fredric Jameson (1984) and Kenneth Gergen (1991) for the 1st time, as well as linking them to Hans Belting’s interpretation of the symbolism of the mask (2013). In the photographs, Wearing assumes the features of her family members through hyper-realistic masks and wigs, recreating and “wearing” the faces from the family albums. Through this process, the artist temporarily assumes the identity of another person while creating a new subject that combines and adds further characteristics to the personalities from which it is composed. The photographs from the series are compared with other works by the artist, particularly her self-portraits painted during the 2020 lockdown and those created in 2023, in which she portrays herself without a mask, marking a significant shift in her artistic practice.

Identity in the Postmodern Psychosocial Context: A Study of Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star

This textual analysis of Nicola Yoon’s novel, The Sun Is Also a Star theorises the contentious issue of the transcultural identity of teenage immigrants in the postmodern psychosocial context. The study contributes to the heated discussion on identity formation in biracial and diasporic young adult literature by using Erikson’s concepts of psychosocial relativity, identity formation and identity crisis, and Jean Baudrillard’s concepts on postmodern identity. This article contends that in an effort to maintain one ethnic identity by erasing her previous Jamaican identity in Trump’s era in the United States, the protagonist Natasha experiences anti-Black racism, discrimination, and biracial identity formation. Conversely, another character in the novel, Daniel relishes dynamic identities to fit in the USA. However, his biracial identity results in an identity crisis. Thus, Yoon’s novel validates a postmodern condition, where teenagers’ multiple identities are regulated on the basis of ethnicity and their struggle for independent identities remains futile. Hence, the study shows that the USAdoes not allow biracial people to experience or adapt to Americanness easily. Keywords: adolescence; cultural identity; identity crisis; psychosocialrelativity; postmodernism

Bir Postmodern Kimlik Anlatısı Olarak Uysallar Dizisi

Modernizm görüşünün aklın ve bilimin öncülüğünde tüm sorunların çözüleceği öngörüsü gerçekleşmeyince bu durum Postmodernizm akımının belirmesine ortam hazırlamış ve büyük anlatıların sanat, ekonomi, siyaset vb. gibi alanlarda çöktüğü görüşü öne sürülmüştür. Böylece aydınlanma düşüncesinin getirisi olan fikirlerin sorgulanmasının yolu açılmıştır. Dolayısıyla Postmodernizm düşüncesi bireylerin yaşayışlarına etki etmiş, bu etkilerin sonucu olduğu söylenebilecek davranış kalıplarıyla bireyler belki de bir kaçış ve rahatlama sağlamıştır. Toplumsal hayatın getirisi olan baskılardan kaçış sonucunda kimi kültürler ve onun alt türleri oluşmaya başlamıştır. Bu kültürleri ve alt türleri benimseyen kimlik türleri olarak düşünebileceğimiz postmodern kimlikler ortaya çıkmıştır. Bunlardan biri 1970’li yıllarda ortaya çıkan Punk görüşüdür. Bu çalışmada Uysallar mini dizisinde yoğunlukla hikâyenin üzerine inşa edildiği başrol Oktay karakteri üzerinden Punk kültürünün yansıtılışı ve diğer karakterler üzerinden postmodern kimliklerin oluşumu ele alınmış, toplumsal hayatın getirilerinden etkilenen karakterler sosyolojik film çözümleme yönteminden yararlanarak analiz edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Analiz sonucunda dizinin Punk akımı görüşlerini ve onun unsurlarını yansıttığı, modernizm görüşünün ‘mutlak doğru’ felsefesinin birey ve toplum yaşamına getirdiği olumsuzlukları eleştirel bir biçimde ele aldığı görülmüştür.

The Development of Postmodern Identity in the Characterisation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

This paper shows that postmodern identity is closely related to the image of cyborg in science fiction. Analyzing the environment and characters in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, written by Philip K.Dick, offers a deep understanding of characteristics of postmodern identity, which is unstable, fragmented and changeable. The bleak urban landscape where only few people live presents a post war and high tech world that shares features of postmodernism. Besides, the character John Isidore, who is a special, and many escaped androids are all considered as others that should be excluded from the normal society. Hence the dilemma of postmodern identity can be uncovered. To be specific, the android character Rachael Rosen illustrates the fragmentation and reconstruction of postmodern female identity because she is a humanoid robot designed as a woman. Also the combination between a cyborg and a woman gives an insight into the similarities between its identity and her identity. Based on the cyborg theory by Donna Haraway, the criticism by Anne Balsamo in Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism and the postmodern identity theory by Elena Abrudan, the extent to which Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? explored the identity can be disclosed.

Search for Transcendent in Science Fiction and Apocalyptic Films

Humanity gradually shifted away from religion and the sacred in the modern age, but in the postmodern age, people have discovered that science and reason alone cannot satisfy them. As a result, people returned in various ways to mythology, religion, and the mystical. Cinema, one of the most popular arts of the visual age, could not possibly ignore this move. Religious themes and elements are prevalent in films. Humanity has lost confidence in metanarratives thanks to postmodernism, and is shown to be on a different quest for meaning, particularly in science fiction and apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic films. In many films, this quest evolves into a quest for the transcendent. People contemplate the beginning and the end; they speculate about their origins and their future directions. Postmodern viewers are drawn to the holy, mystical, mythological, and transcendental quests offered in movie theaters. As a result, the film business, which is capitalist in nature, uses this tactic to produce stories that are transcendental, sacred, mythological, mystical, magical, supernatural, and, generally speaking, religious. This essay explores the attempt of postmodern man to use cinema to re-enchant the demystified universe. The postmodern man is tired of extreme rationalism and is on a philosophical quest. The study analyzes five science fiction movies, which are also referred to as apocalyptic movies. These are Avatar (2009), Interstellar (2014), Prometheus (2012), War of the Worlds (2005), and I Am Legend (2007). The article argues that in these movies, post-modern man’s quest for meaning is addressed with some sort of transcendence, his modern identity is developed into a postmodern one, or a postmodern identity is brought forth, and his worries about the end are mostly appeased with a postmodern uncertainty.

An Incessant Historical Struggle for a Jewish Bantustan: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

This article tries to investigate the connection space and time as they pertain to the fictitious world of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007). The book shows significant concerns regarding the existence of Israel as well as the concept of a Jewish state. By analysing the function of eruvim in the construction and contestation of Jewish identity in Chabon's postmodern detective novel from 2007, this study argues that Chabon creates a universe in which geographical place complicates rather than simplifies Jewish identity in diaspora and postmodernity. This study accomplishes its goal by analysing the function of eruvim in analysing Chabon's postmodern detective novel from 2007. So, the Jewish Alaska that exists in Chabon's imagination has a significant link to the contentious assertions that he has made regarding the contemporary geographical state of Israel.

Sabine Frühstück, Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan

Women’s history was established in Japan with the politically motivated search for matriarchal structures in ancient society by feminist Takamure Itsue in the 1930s and led to a gendered reading of history in the 1980s and 1990s, when historians such as Wakita Haruko explored the pre-modern organisation of the household. In the past two decades, the field has been expanded considerably, not least by Sabine Frühstück herself. As the cover suggests—a picture of actor Nakamura Shidō, who has an androgynous appearance due to his painted brows and lose silk haori, as well as the skin-to-skin embrace of his newborn baby—Frühstück’s most recent book is an invitation to consider the order of sex, gender and sexuality, as well as the occasions that challenged that order in modern Japan. By drawing on methods from history and anthropology and making visible unequal relationships determined by ideals of the nuclear family and heterosexuality, Frühstück adheres to two main demands of gender studies: interdisciplinarity and the deconstruction of types of domination. She distinguishes between three levels of analysis: individuals to be brought out of historical anonymity, as first called for by women’s history; institutional mechanisms shaped by state regulations and societal expectations; and overarching developments, including imperialism, war, the US occupation, economic boom and post-modern identity crisis.

The World as a Sequence of Present Moments: The Spatialization of Social Time in Don DeLillo’s White Noise

This paper highlights the issue of consumerism in Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), as well as its representation and its effects on the construction of postmodern identity. It also reveals how consumers resort to spatialized time as a way to overcome the fear of death. Since consumerism goes along with mass media, this paper discusses simulation and hyper-reality in relation to consumerism and the spatialized social time. In addition to this, it pays attention to simultaneity as another aspect of spatialized time. In incorporating the figure of Hitler in the narrative, DeLillo juxtaposes the past with the present and thus creates a spatialization of time. The figure of Hitler represents another aspect of consumerism. The protagonist of this novel, Jack Gladney, tends to consume Hitler’s image in order to acquire power as will be analyzed in the coming pages. Keywords: Spatialized Social Time, White Noise, Don Delillo, Consumerism, Present Moment.

Captive Minds and Civil Dialogue: A Reflection on Catholic Universities in the Post-Dobbs Era

Discourse about abortion within the Catholic community - not to mention the broader world - is broken. There are a number of reasons for this but one is surely the way that ideological forces have captured the minds of intellectuals. In his 1951 classic, The Captive Mind, the great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz examined the phenomenon of Polish artists surrendering their creativity to the demands of Stalinist socialist realism. The book has endured because Milosz’s powerful insights transcended his own time. Indeed, those insights can be drawn on as cautionary notes and wise suggestions for how to approach discourse on abortion at Catholic universities in our own day. This essay identifies the ideological pitfalls of the present: Catholic absolutism, postmodern identity cancel culture, Trumpian lies, and more. The essay also draws on Milosz to suggest that the following could aid Catholic universities as they ponder how to talk about contemporary Catholic challenges around law and abortion. Universities should beware of the distorting effects of their affluence; reject the notion of one Catholic legal solution to abortion; and turn to the artists and poets.

The Rise of Subaltern from Fiction to Film: Postmodern Identity and Self in the White Tiger

The Rise of Subaltern from Fiction to Film: Postmodern Identity and Self in the White Tiger

Understanding Postmodern Identity Among US Young Adults Through an Investigation of Globalized Interest

The 21st century and internet technology has brought about many changes that includes exposure to new cultures. This creates opportunities for new identities to develop. In this study, the researcher examines identity integration through discussions on engagement in a globalized interest in connection with postmodernism. Twelve college students who were interested in a culture not connected to their own ethnic background were interviewed. The majority of the participants were interested in Japanese anime and Korean pop music while not being ethnically Japanese or Korean. Using Erikson’s theorizing of three levels of identity and Hidi and Renninger’s four phases of interest development, the researcher discusses the integration of participants’ interest into their ego identity, personal identity, and social identity as well as the utilization of the internet for interest development. The researcher ends with suggestions for future identity research that includes considerations around how identity integration might be considered (i.e., identity synthesis) and further investigations around internet content.

The filmmaker’s presence in French contemporary autofiction: from filmeur/filmeuse to acteur/actrice

ABSTRACT Autofiction as realized in cinematic practice adds a figure of identification to the literary author-narrator-character: that of actor/actress. The filmmaker, playing him/herself, employs innovative strategies in audiovisual narration to generate this autofictional identity. This article analyses these strategies as seen in French cinema, on which literary autofiction has a determining influence. My analysis of this practice is mapped along a double axis. The first classifies the films in a progressive evolution from the factualisation of the fictional (documentary’s starting point) to the fictionalisation of the factual (fiction’s starting point). The second analyses the films with regard to the filmmaker’s presence: from the filmeur/filmeuse who stands behind the camera and records the images him/herself to the acteur/actrice who exclusively appears in front of the camera. This cinematic exploration of the self thus situates the filmmaker in all possible positions so as to develop autofictional strategies for exploring postmodern identity and alterity, using parody and irony as effective tools. In this laboratory of the self, filmmakers experiment with the topics they address – reflection on cinema, artistic exploration, self-knowledge, ideological reasoning, and sociopolitical criticism – as well as create valuable screen manifestations of resilience, empathy, sorority, and even pedagogy.

SOCIOCULTURAL IDENTITY POSTMODERN: PROBLEM OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

SOCIOCULTURAL IDENTITY POSTMODERN: PROBLEM OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

#BuddhistCultureWars: BuddhaBros, Alt-Right Dharma, and Snowflake Sanghas

While often associated with a liberal demographic, the increasing online visibility of rhetoric such as “snowflakes,” “politically correct,” “postmodern identity politics,” and “cultural Marxism” demonstrates the presence of right-wing sentiments and populations in American convert Buddhism. This article situates these sentiments largely as a reaction to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in these communities. We chart this backlash across a broad right-wing spectrum that spans from “reactionary centrism” to the alt-right. We illuminate the ways in which participants both de-legitimate DEI as political rather than Buddhist and naturalize their own position as Buddhist rather than political. Next, we show how American convert Buddhist lineages have become a site of the “culture wars,” longstanding clashes between religious conservatives and progressives, that are playing out in multiple contexts across the US. Finally, we locate these reactionary right-wing forms of American Buddhism in relationship to modern and postmodern forms of global Buddhism.

A CRISE DA IDENTIDADE NA PÓS-MODERNIDADE: REFLEXOS NA FORMAÇÃO DA IDENTIDADE DOCENTE

This study consists of bibliographic research, with a qualitative approach and exploratory nature. It aims to discuss the impacts of an identity crisis on the construction of the professional identity of teachers in the context of postmodernity. At first, it deals with concepts regarding the subjects’ identity in different phases of the modern period, as well as the causes that led to the postmodern identity crisis. Next, it addresses the signs of crisis in the formation of teacher identity in this period and the main challenges involved. Therefore, the theoretical basis receives the contributions of authors such as Giddens (1991, 2007), Bauman (2001, 2005), Hall (1998), Castells (2003), and Lévy (2010), among others. It is observed that teachers’ practice is filled with fears and uncertainties between traditional and contemporary pedagogical guidelines. Postmodernity has demanded a reformulation of teachers’ identity based on a doubtful and fragmented ground over the years since the professional establishment. Among the main challenges for teacher identity formation, there is the need to make the profession appealing, to keep professionals greatly qualified in teaching and to make them realize that their education must be continuous and permanent since it will never be complete.

Lolita fashion, new media, and cultural hegemony in contemporary Japan

This article seeks to present Lolita fashion, which emerged in Japan during the 1980s, as a case study in performed, postmodern identities that are negotiated through consumerism. Opening with a broad stroke introduction to Lolita fashion, with regard to its principal characteristics and its cultural origins, the article attempts to examine the Lolita phenomenon using a variety of theoretical tools and approaches. Firstly, the article considers Lolita fashion in the light of Antonio Gramsci's notion of cultural hegemony. I assert that Lolita fashion might usefully be read as a place of rupture or resistance against the orthodox hegemony of Japan's historically collectivist culture, one that provides its users with an alternate set of social values, particularly when it comes to traditional notions of femininity. Next, I lean, particularly, on Stuart Hall's ideas about modernity, and consider the question of agency, with regard to Lolita fashion, and attempt to locate the impetus for it, not in multinational fashion houses, but the participants of Lolita subculture themselves. In a third section, I go on to problematise that agency, drawing on John Storey's cultural theory work. While it is a commonplace to attribute the rise of a totalising, contemporary mass culture to the digital revolution, Storey locates a potential for new meanings to be generated, not so much within the act of buying - for that is largely determined by the market - but in what he calls the 'production in use' of those goods. The fashion adage, 'It's not what you wear, but how you wear it' seems to ring particularly true in Lolita fashion, and I explore that idea further with an in-depth, textual analysis of a select image. I conclude by considering Lolita fashion's exportation, out of Japan and into a globalised marketplace, and the signification thereof.

From Democratic Socialism and Rational Planning to Postmodern Identity Politics and Market-Orientation

This article deconstructs the ideological development of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP). The SDP and SAP favoured democratic rational regulation of the economy by the state and worker organisations to optimise societal production costs from the 1920s onwards. This was in line with their identity as democratic socialists. It did not mean only a reformist relationship to capitalism, but also adapting to Kautskyanism, Austro-Marxism, “functional socialism” and logical empiricism. These ideas were complemented with a positive attitude towards “mixed economy” and “markets” in the 1980s. The postmodern fragmentation of the labour movement’s identity was compatible with the rise in its faith in the market and the abandonment of Marxism by the SAP and the SDP by the end of the 20th century. This happened after they had failed to introduce a New International Economic Order based on Keynesian democratic economic regulation.

PRESERVING THE LEBANESE HERITAGE TO ENHANCE THE LOCAL IDENTITY

Lebanon is a country with a complex multitude of historical events, a conflicting built environment and a wide range of specimen architectural projects and memorial structures that only partially reflected the intricate complexity of the country. Recently Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, has undergone several stages of profound transformations and urban expansions between 1840 and 1920, after the civil war (1975-1990) which was generated by many intricate dimensions, a vast rural to urban migration brought to Beirut, a numerous population in search of job opportunities. During the reconstruction, Beirut faced unprecedented economic growth and started to be recognized as an emerging city subjected to all the influences of the world globalization. Recently an evident conflict started to afflict the direction of the country development due to the urgent need to start recognizing the values of the neglected heritage that have been affected by massive demolition and abandonment. The debate between the construction of a contemporary global city with a post-modern identity, represented by innovative architecture and the need to preserve the national architecture and landscape, have generated numerous contrasting opinion in the cultural scene. In the debate between innovation and tradition, this article presents a comparative analysis of two reconstruction projects recently concluded in Lebanon. The aim is to highlight some fundamental problems that need to be considered to enhance processes that affect the urban development of the country.

“I Put a Spell on You”: Affiliating (Mis)Identifications and Toxic Masculinity in David Lynch’s Lost Highway

Abstract The Lost Highway soundtrack’s kitchen-sink assemblage of mid-1990s alternative acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins and glam giants like David Bowie and Lou Reed seems like a brazen attempt to open additional revenue streams for David Lynch’s uncommercial twenty-first-century noir nightmare. However, closer attention to how these songs are used in the film, particularly three cover songs, reveals a more intricate strategy. This article explores how scholarship regarding cover songs echoes and extends scholarship on postmodern identity in Lost Highway and on the compilation soundtrack itself. Each cover appears at a crucial moment in the narrative, and each exemplifies what Michael Rings calls a “generic reset,” a transformative recording that shifts genre and style to create a new song complete with the ability to alter the meaning of the song and, in the case of Lost Highway, the film as well. Lost Highway’s covers twist Kassabian’s concept of affiliating identifications, ensnaring the audience in a web of affiliating misidentifications, a sonic déjà vu in which the comfort of recognition collapses into disorientation, not pleasure. Such a move in a film about doppelgängers and alter egos borne out of a white male sexual panic cannot be mere coincidence. By subverting audience identification with the soundtrack, Lost Highway broadens noir conventions musically and opens new lanes to understanding the compilation soundtrack as a vehicle for subverting and resisting control and pleasure, chansons fatales whose identities are as fluid and beyond the audience’s control as the femme fatale is from the male noir protagonist.

Preface. The upsurge of irrationality: pseudoscience, denialism and post-truth

As I write this preface, the world faces unbridled polarisation. Not far from here, the streets of Barcelona are burning due to violent riots, driven by postmodern identity politics and recalcitrant doxastic narcissism. Worldwide, clashes of irreconcilable, often extravagant, conceptions shape current controversies over key social issues and global challenges. Political campaigns spread disinformation as routine, aimed at increasing the isolation and radicalisation of social groups. As a result, authoritarian governments are flourishing among consolidated democracies, such as the United States, Brazil, Poland, Italy, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. In other countries, such as France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland, populists parties that propose regressive policies are gaining momentum, promoting the fracture of civic epistemology. This political situation emerges from a lower level phenomenon: echo-chambers of information elicited by filter bubbles and consumer-oriented algorithms. These days, people do not need demagogue politicians or professional charlatans to bring them into contact with, and embolden them to accept, disinformation. Instead, the generalised post-truth situation must be considered a pathology of communication that affects almost all dimensions of our cultural landscape: as hot cognition boosts the rejection of evidence-based discussion over identity-related issues, critical thinking is widely perceived as threatening to internalised partisanship and ingroup bias. Predictably, unfounded beliefs thrive under these conditions. Influential groups successfully promote alternative epistemologies through the denial of scientific facts — e.g. anthropogenic climate change, scientific consensus on the safety of vaccination, or well-documented disinformation on Brexit and the like. Science and universities are exploited in order to defend corporate interests. Fake news, corrupt journalism, and other forms of manipulation of public opinion goes unpunished. Social networks, as the dominant model of interpersonal communication, are a hotbed of epistemic agitation. In general terms, fact acceptance has come to be understood as a tribal process, thus leaving behind modern standards of public reason and critical assessment. This situation is not new: humanity has always been involved in all sorts of biases and dishonest motives. Nevertheless, the current upsurge of irrationality arises from its technical intensification. This special issue is aimed at aiding understanding of this state of affairs, as the philosophical analysis of pseudoscience and post-truth is a subject with great social relevance — a fascinating journey through the dark side of human cognition, not sufficiently taken into account within current philosophical discussions. Despite not having clearly delineated sections, it is structured in three thematic clusters. The first cluster (Vacura, Edis, Cuevas-Badallo and Labrador Montero, Torcello, Vega, and my own contribution) deals with the general elucidation and ramifications of post-truth. The second cluster (Hansson, Stamenkovic, Kreimer, Perez-Gonzalez, and Ruse) analyses specific instances of disinformation and misconceptions, particularly in relation to pseudoscience as a social affair and organised scepticism. Lastly, the third cluster (Cernin, Gascon, Manninen, and Pigliucci) is composed of a heterogeneous set of reflections on the cultural implications of post-truth and pseudoscience, including education and virtue epistemology. I would like to thank the authors who have participated in this special issue. As a guest editor, I’m proud of having worked with you all, and of the magnificent manuscripts included in this monograph. Moreover, I would like to thank the editor-in-chief of this journal, Paulo Velez Leon, for his kind invitation and his courageous support.