MACH Unit 6: Postmodernism

Post-Modernism (1968-)

Emerged around 1968, embraces the idea that life is a performance. Style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism. General distrust of grand theories and ideologies. Emphasizes boundary-crossing and genre mixing. It privileges caricature over characters, conventions over consciousness, surface-level over depth, and the body over the mind

John Berger, excerpts from Ways of Seeing (1972)

Argument that the nude in Western art systematically objectifies women. Images and art are created from the male perspective for the man. The woman’s sole objective is to appear desirable to the male gaze

The Velvet Underground (1964-1973), “Candy Says” (1969)

A song about transgender actress Candy Darling

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Self-Portrait in Drag (1981)

Photos of Warhol in drag, had an interest in drag queens

Goncharov (August-November 2020)

Fake film made online during the pandemic

Andy Warhol, Flash - November 22, 1963 (1968)

Artist, made screen prints based on JFK’s assassination, bothered that we were supposed to feel sad

Michael Rogin (1937-2001), Ronald Reagan, the Movie, and Other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987)

Professor of political science, wrote a book on Ronald Reagan

Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America (1957)

Book studying movies, mass literature, radio, television, advertising, popular music, and mass culture in general

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Michel Foucault (1926-1984), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975)

Book about changes in the prison system. prison is used in schools, hospitals, and military barracks

Robert Venturi (1925-2018) and Denise Scott Brown (1931-), Learning from Las Vegas (1972)

Republished this book as a smaller book

Pruitt-Igoe (1954-April 22, 1972)

Modernist housing project in St. Louis, demolition was a symbol of the failings if modernist architecture in the eyes of society

Fredric Jameson (1934-), Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991)

Essay on post-modernism, identified traits of modernism and related it to the changing of capitalism

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Painted images featured in Jameson’s essay

Jean Genet (1910-1986), The Thief’s Journal (1949 in French, 1964 in English)

Playwright who told his truth “I am a thief”

Susan Sontag (1933-2004), Against Interpretation (1966) and On Photography (1977)

Essayist, intellectual, NYC Jew, argued against interpretation

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)

Abstract painter, revolutionized abstract painting

Sherrie Levine (1947-), After Walker Evans (1981)

Feminist conceptual artist, photographed a photo taken by Walker Evans

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), Howl, and Other Poems (1956)

Started a poetry house to make poetry accessible

The Living Theater (1947-), Paradise Now (1968)

Liberation through theater, liberation from the auditorium, disregard of norms in the theater

The Bread and Puppet Theater (1962-)

Post modernist theater, engaged in protest, politically radical

Lionel Trilling (1905-1975)

Said student uprisings amount to modernism in the streets

Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts (1962-1965)

Magazine dedicated to free expression, would print anything

Liberation: A Journal of Democratic Discussion (South Africa) (1953-1959)

Magazine focused on liberation in South Africa

Liberation News Service (1967-1981)

Anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to subscribing underground, alternative, and radical newspapers

No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation (1968-1973)

Radical women’s journal of theory and analysis, documented women’s movement

The Kent State Massacre (May 4, 1970)

Protest where 4 students were murdered, 3 Jewish, rally against the Vietnam War

All in the Family (1971-1979)

Sitcom introducing complex issues like racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, abortion, women’s liberation, rape, religion, miscarriage, the Vietnam War, and more

The Hard Hat Riot in NYC, between construction workers and hippies (May 8, 1970)

Construction workers and office workers attacked student protestors over the Vietnam War and Kent State Massacre

The Mail Strike of 1970 (March 18-25, 1970)

Strike against the federal government

GM Assembly Plant in Lordstown, Ohio (1966-2019)

Hippies, strike against management, part of a broader mass unrest of the 1970s

Loose Bolts? (1973)

Interviews with people who worked at the GM Assembly Plant, workers were smart

League of Revolutionary Black Workers (1969-1993)

Revolutionary unionism, guided by Black liberation and Marxism-Leninism

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008), God and Man at Yale (1951), National Review (1955-)

Wrote the “Bible” for the new right

Young Americans for Freedom (1960-)

Right-wing movement, perpetrated by students

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills (1977-80)

A series of black and white photographs by American conceptual artist Cindy Sherman. Sherman cast herself in various stereotypical female roles inspired by the 1950s and 60s. Featured characters. Ambiguous, no meaning. Film stills featured characters, language art, based on film, the woman as an object rather than subject, focus on who is off screen, neither autobiography nor documentary. Focus on the nature of femininity through costumes and props

Alice Bags (1958), and The Bags (1977-81), “Gluttony” (1980)

Chicana, grew up working class, one of the first hardcore punk bands

American Association of University Professors (1915-), GW chapter of AAUP (2025-)

Union for professors, aim to abolish divisions between faculty, staff, and students

9 to 5 (1980)

Film, represented the life of the working woman in mid-century America, comedy. White women workers were a part of second-wave feminism

9TO5

National Association of Working Women

Jane Fonda (1937-)

Star in 9 to 5, daughter of Henry Fonda from the Age of the CIO

Lily Tomlin (1939-)

Star in 9 to 5, born to Kentucky migrants living in Detroit

Dolly Parton (1946-), “9 to 5” (1980)

Born to a sharecropper, outrageous performance of gender. Music video featured scenes from 9 to 5. New presence of women in the office

The Office: The Post-Fordist Factory

Economy shifted to be dominated by services, increase in government employment, clerical workers became predominated by women

Union Carbide Corporation Headquarters/Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1960)

Office building, post-modernist high rise

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) (1932-)

Largest trade union of public employees, sanitation workers went on strike in 1968

Teaching Assistants Association (TAA) at University of Wisconsin, Madison (1968-)

Graduate Student Employee Union, graduate students went on strike March-April 1970

Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO) (1968-)

Trade union of air traffic controllers, went on strike August 3-5, 1981

Title VII (1964) and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965-)

Established to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prevent/remedy discrimination in the workplace

Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement & The New Left (1979)

Wrote about how the second wave feminism grew out of the new left and the civil rights movement

Black Secretaries of America (1969-na) and Association of Black Secretaries (1972-na)

Small efforts to push second wave feminism

Barbara Garson (1941-), The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office and the Future into the Factory of the Past (1988)

New technologies are transforming office jobs into factory-like roles, prioritizing speed over creativity and critical thinking

Paul McCartney (1942-), “Temporary Secretary” (1980)

Wrote and sang a song about the secretary

Mary Gaitskill, “Secretary” in the short-story collection Bad Behavior (1988)

Influential short story about the secretary

Mary Tyler Moore (1936-2017) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)

Actress, producer, advocate. Show that told the story of the new woman, sitcom focused on daily life of an unmarried woman at work, commentary on social relations in the workplace, groundbreaking for its portrayal of a female character who is neither married nor dependent on a man

Ms. Magazine (1972-)

Magazines focused on Ms. America, first national American feminist magazine

Jane Fonda and Barbarella (1968), They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Klute (1971)

Actress from an acting family, one of the most admired women, broke out as a sex symbol in Barbarella, member of the anti-war movement, made workout videos

Barbara Kruger (1945-), No Progress in Pleasure (1982)

Utilized the photo collage as her signature, understood women as objects of the male gaze, worked as a secretary, active in pro-choice campaigns, commentator on consumer culture

Jenny Holzer (1950-), Truisms and Other Essays (1983)

Printed truisms as 14×14 squares, published messages in public in Times Square NYC

Adrian Piper (1948-), Mythic Being (1973) and My Calling (Card) #1 (1986)

Philosopher of Black critical theory and feminist theory, performance art

Cindy Sherman (1954-)

Feminist conceptual artist who worked with performance art photography, known for her highly influential photographic black and white self-portraits

“Sick-Building Syndrome” (c. 1980-)

Poor ventilation caused sickness in the office

Processed World (1981-2005)

Anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian magazine focused on the oppressions and absurdities of office work

Office Killer (1997) and Molly Ringwald (1968-)

Film directed by Cindy Sherman, office worker goes on a murder spree

The Office (US version, 2005-2013)

Mockumentary sitcom focused on the everyday life of office employees

Carrie Brownstein (1974-), Mary Timony (1970-), and Wild Flag (2010-2013), “Romance” (2011)

Song connecting rock music with love

American Graffiti (1973)

Coming of age film telling the story of a group of teenagers on the last evening of summer vacation. The film is a study of cruising and early rock ‘n’ roll cultures

Karate Kid (1984)

Martial arts film where Italian-American teenager Daniel LaRusso learns Karate from Okinawan immigrant Mr. Miyagi to defend himself against bullies. The Sensei Daniel is competing against is an ex-Special Forces Vietnam Veteran

The Silhouettes, “Get a Job” (1957)

R&B song celebrating the virtues of securing gainful employment

Boston University’s “Lisztomania” Brat-Pack Mashup Video (2010)

Recruitment video, example of school as a mass culture and a culture industry

Alexandra Ocasio Cortez (1989-)

United States House of Representatives member featured in the Boston University video

White Collar: Training for Offices

Going to high school became the norm, trained people for office jobs

The United States Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, PA (1879-1918)

Indigenous kids were shipped off to residential schools

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

Film centered on the teen in high school, teenagers mingled in groups across class and race lines

Grease (1978)

Film centered on the teen in high school, boy from the wrong side of the tracks

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Film centered on the teen in high school, characters represented different classes and teenage stereotypes

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), The Higher Learning in America (1918)

Critical study between the links of capitalism and higher education

The Morrill Land Grant Agricultural and Mechanical College Act (1862)

Established universities on land, designed to make public education accessible for everyone

Sputnik

Universities began to host efforts for the arms race through labs and research

The GI Bill: Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944

Gave money to 8 million veterans for college education, first generation of non-traditional students

Vannevar Bush (1890-1974), Science: The Endless Frontier (1945)

Book with an emphasis on the need for continuous and substantial scientific knowledge

Clark Kerr (1911-2003), The Uses of the University (1963)

Founded the US System, factories for pursuit of knowledge

The California Master Plan for Higher Education (1960)

Three tier elitist model, UCs, CSUs, community colleges

Mortimer Adler (1902-2001), The Great Books of the Western World (1952-), How to Read a Book (1940-)

Idea that education should be the same for everyone and philosophy should be mainstreamed into he public school curriculum

Ansel Adamas (1902-1984), Flat Lux (1966)

Photographer, commissioned to photograph the UC system, focused on landscape, featured very little student protest, had no college degree

Mario Savio (1942-1996), The Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley (1964-65)

Head of the movement, criticized management

The Chicano Blowouts (March-September 1968)

Emergence of teenagers as political activists on the national stage, strong foothold in high schools, walkouts, RFK showed up

The Neoliberal University

Shift towards the idea that the university should pay for itself, no more federal funding, college became more expensive as a result as the only way to earn money was through research or increased tuition

The Bayh-Dole Act, The Patent and Trademarks Law Amendment Act (1980)

Privatized profits from research through patents to keep universities open

Gary Becker (1930-2014), Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (1964)

Claimed investment in an individual’s education and training is similar to business investments in equipment

George Lucas (1944-), American Graffiti (1973)

Based on Lucas’ experience growing up and leaving home, colorful image of high school, torn between the labor of staying behind and the capital of moving forward, only the PMC escapes, utilized drag races as a metaphor for what will happen to those who stay behind and don’t go to college

Tisha Venturini (1973-)

Soccer player from Modesto

Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger”

Song on perseverance, determination, and resilience

Bob Dylan (1941-)

Born Robert Zimmerman, American singer-songwriter, visual artist, has impacted music and culture since the 1960s, known for his poetic lyrics and political songs, became a prominent figure in the folk music revival

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

Post-modernist artist, used silkscreen printing to mass-produce images from popular and consumer culture, use of repeated images and logos reflects the themes of mass production

Post-Fordism

The shift in economic production away from the factory model, marked by deindustrialization and downsizing in American corporations

The New Left

Emerged in the 1960s as a distinct social and political movement, characterized by a focus on social justice, civil rights activism, and anti-war efforts

The New Right

Emerged in the 1960s as a distinct social and political movement, characterized by traditional family values and strong national identity

Highschool

In the early half of the 20th century, it was common for formal education to stop after one hit adolescence. By 1940, 73% of American youth were enrolled in high school

Pink Collar

Term associated with the rise of women in the workplace, refers to labor that is traditionally feminized, such as care-giving or service roles