postmodernism

[She Ra]

Hi, I really want to take a post modernism course but have to justify it to my advisor first. I don't have a great reason, just a gut feeling about this. Can anyone help out with the justification part?

[RefurbedScientist]

Witty banter at conference receptions.

[RefurbedScientist]

Justifies all the black turtlenecks in your closet.

[RefurbedScientist]

External funding from the armchair industry lobby.

[SocingHxC]

External funding from the armchair industry lobby.

Justifies all the black turtlenecks in your closet.

Witty banter at conference receptions.

Lovin' it, groovy!!!

[She Ra]

Dunno if any of the above would fly with my advisor- I wish I could say: "I like the timing of that class better than other classes." But I guess I gotta come up with something more serious sounding!

[RefurbedScientist]

What are your research interests? Postmodern theory has had greater inroads in some subfields than others. I think sociology of the body, sexuality, and social control/discipline have been influenced more-so than, say, economic or political sociology. You could justify as a new perspective on your area of study.

[She Ra]

my area is media and religious identity.

[TheBoxInspector]

As others have mentioned, this does depend on what you're trying to do research on and what about "postmodernism" you are studying. The term has come to mean everything from a logic of capitalism to a collapse of meta-narratives to critical theory to cultural relativism and so on. I think you probably need to do your own digging and look for the people who are relevant to the topics you're interested in. So for media, you could look up someone like Deleuze on cinema and then relate it to your own interests. Or if you're talking about identity, you could try to show how someone in the postmodernist tradition (or someone who studies it, like David Harvey or Frederic Jameson) is important for understanding the construction of religious identity or how it's changed. I would start with one or two thinkers who say something interesting or relevant, and then leverage that to justify taking a class that would place this person's ideas into context.

And then choose wisely what you're going to take. A lot of postmodernism requires learning about the terms they use, and at least from the classes I've taken, they often reduce their ideas to cliches without showing how they are relevant or without addressing the questions that led to them. It doesn't mean that they don't have some good ideas, but it is a stigmatized branch of thought for a reason...it does mean that you have more work to do in order to justify its explanatory relevance.