POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE
P RNCU REPO ODER E P O S T M O D E R N
P TMOD RNCU U EP S ODER ULTU E C U L T U R E
P RNCU UR OS ODER ULTURE
P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER ULTU E an electronic journal
P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER E of interdisciplinary
POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE criticism
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Volume 3, Number 2 (January, 1993) ISSN: 1053-1920
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Editors: Eyal Amiran, Issue Editor
John Unsworth
Review Editor: Jim English
Managing Editor: Nancy Cooke
List Manager: Chris Barrett
Editorial Assistant: Jonathan Beasley
Editorial Board:
Kathy Acker Chimalum Nwankwo
Sharon Bassett Patrick O'Donnell
Michael Berube Elaine Orr
Marc Chenetier Marjorie Perloff
Greg Dawes David Porush
R. Serge Denisoff Mark Poster
Robert Detweiler Carl Raschke
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Mike Reynolds
Joe Gomez Avital Ronell
Robert Hodge Andrew Ross
bell hooks Jorge Ruffinelli
E. Ann Kaplan Susan M. Schultz
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett William Spanos
Arthur Kroker Tony Stewart
Neil Larsen Gary Lee Stonum
Jerome J. McGann Chris Straayer
Stuart Moulthrop Paul Trembath
Larysa Mykyta Greg Ulmer
Phil Novak
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CONTENTS
AUTHOR & TITLE FN FT
Masthead, Contents, and CONTENTS 193
Instructions for retrieving files
Barrett Watten, "Post-Soviet Subjectivity" WATTEN 193
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, from _Phosphor_. Tr. DRAGOMOS 193
Lyn Hejinian and Elena Balashova
Jerome McGann, Vitaly Chernetsky, SYMPOS-1 193
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Mikhail Epstein,
Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Marjorie
Perloff, A Symposium on Russian
Postmodernism, Oct. 26-Nov. 25, 1992
Marjorie Perloff, and Mikhail Epstein, two SYMPOS-2 193
draft essays circulated as part of
Postmoder Culture's symposium on Russian
Postmodernism
Vladislav Todorov, "The Four Luxembourgs" TODOROV 193
(fiction)
Wendy Wahl, "Bodies and Technologies: _Dora_, WAHL 193
_Neuromancer_, and Strategies of
Resistance"
Alan Aycock, "Derrida/Fort-da: Deconstructing AYCOCK 193
Play"
Kathleen Burnett, "Towards a Theory of BURNETT 193
Hypertextual Design"
POPULAR CULTURE COLUMN:
Honoria, "Introducing Mail Art: A Karen Elliot
interview with Crackerjack Kid and Honoria" POP-CULT 193
REVIEWS:
Stuart Moulthrop, "Deuteronomy Comix." A review
of Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_. REVIEW-1 193
Jon Thompson, "Consuming Megalopolis." A review
of Celeste Olalquiaga's _Megalopolis:
Contemporary Cultural Sensibilities_. REVIEW-2 193
Philip E. Agre, "Sustainability and Critique."
A review of Will Wright's _Wild Knowledge:
Science, Language, and Social Life in a
Fragile Environment_. REVIEW-3 193
Susan J. Ritchie, "Constructing an Archipelago:
Writing the Caribbean." A review of Antonio
Benitez-Rojo's _The Repeating Island:
The Caribbean and the Postmodern
Perspective_. REVIEW-4 193
James Morrison, "Hitchcock: The Industry." A
review of Robert E. Kapsis's _Hitchock: The
Making of a Reputation_. REVIEW-5 193
Josephine Lee, "Cookbooks for Theory and
Performance." A review of Case, Sue-Ellen
and Janelle Reinelt, eds. _The Performance
of Power: Theatrical Discourse and Politics_,
and Reinelt, Janelle G. and Joseph R. Roach,
eds. _Critical Theory and Performance_. REVIEW-6 193
Glen Scott Allen, "Baptismal Eulogies:
Reconstructing Deconstruction from the
Ashes." A review of Jacques Derrida's
_Cinders_, tr. Ned Lukacher, and Jacques
Derrida's _The Other Heading: Reflections on
Today's Europe_, tr. Pascale-Anne Brault &
Michael B. Naas. REVIEW-7 193
LETTERS:
Vaillancourt-Rosenau and Foley, an exchange LETTERS 193
NOTICES:
Announcements and Advertisements NOTICES 193
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ABSTRACTS
Barrett Watten, "Post-soviet Subjectivity in Arkadii
Dragomoshchenko and Ilya Kabakov"
ABSTRACT: The break-up of official culture in the
Soviet Union led to aesthetic developments characterized by
an intense, utopian, and metaphysically speculative
subjectivity. Identifying these "post-Soviet" developments
with postmodernism would be to misunderstand them, however.
Aspects of this subjectivity can be seen in the
installations and texts of Ilya Kabakov, developing out of
Moscow conceptual art originating in the 1970s and now being
shown in museums in the West, and in the poetry of Arkadii
Dragomoshchenko, representative of the 1980s "meta" litera-
ture from Moscow and Leningrad, now appearing in American
translations. Both projects, while formally very different,
dismantle Soviet authority in ways that are more culturally
specific than generically postmodern. --BW
Jerome McGann, Vitaly Chernetsky, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko,
Mikhail Epstein, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, and Marjorie
Perloff, "A Symposium on Russian Postmodernism"
ABSTRACT: Jerome McGann moderates an email discussion
among Vitaly Chernetsky, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Mikhail
Epstein, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, and Marjorie Perloff
about Russian Postmodernism. The discussions took place on
Oct. 26-Nov. 25, 1992. The symposium includes poetry by
Arkadii Dragomoschenko, from XENIA, and an essay by
Dragomoschenko, "Eroticism of For-Getting, Eroticism of
Beyond-Being" (translated by Vanessa Bittner with Arkadii
Dragomoshchenko). A draft of an essay by Marjorie
Perloff was circulated at the beginning to all participants;
this essay, and also excerpts from an essay by Mikhail
Epstein (sent during the symposium), are included the file
SYMPOS-2 in this issue. Participants received an advance
copy of Barrett Watten's essay, available in this issue as
WATTEN 193. --EA
Wendy Wahl, "Bodies and Technologies: _Dora_, _Neuromancer_, and
Strategies of Resistance"
ABSTRACT: A pragmatic warning for cyborgs seeking to
resist the "gradual and willing accommodation of the
machine," the author focuses on the ability of therapeutic
and cybernetic networks to recuperate resistance. From
Freudian clinical practice to the historicized future of
William Gibson's _Neuromancer_, promising theoretical
disruptions of oppositional pairs are reclaimed in practice,
often with chilling results. This reclamation is often
signaled by the material moment when gender oppositions
break down; in a backlash against their inclusion with "the
other," the nostalgic and paranoid reaction of male
theorists excludes the object, locating interiority once
again within their experience. Is there any space in a
postnatural future for a female subject with interiority?
Alan Aycock, "Derrida/Fort-da: Deconstructing Play"
ABSTRACT: Although the writings of Jacques Derrida are
notable for their playfulness, little attention has been
given to the possibilities of a deconstructive approach to
the study of play itself. Derrida's discussion of the
"fort-da" game is presented to suggest some elements of such
an approach, and five examples drawn from participant
observation of the game of chess are analysed from a
deconstructive viewpoint. Some implications of
deconstruction are offered for further ethnographic
investigation. --AA
Kathleen Burnett, "Toward a Theory of Hypertextual Design"
ABSTRACT: Commencing with a critique of Poster's
modes of information, this article employs Deleuze &
Guattari's metaphor of the rhizome to explicate
electronically mediated exchange, of which hypertext is the
apparent fulfillment. The "approximate characteristics of
the rhizome"--principles of connection, heterogeneity,
multiplicity, asignifying rupture, and cartography and
decalcomania--are considered as principles of hypertextual
design. --KB
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