Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This review is taken from PN Review 95, Volume 20 Number 3, January - February 1994.

J.R. HellierTHE WOBBLING PIVOT BARRY SMART, Postmodernity: Key Ideas (Routledge) np
DANA GIOIA, Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture (Graywolf Press) np

Postmodernity serves as a short introduction to and overview of a complex phenomenon which, by dint of the instability which is its central characteristic, can be approached as profitably from one scholarly perspective as another, the traditionally observed delineation between disciplines no longer withstanding. As Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Auckland, it is unsurprising that Barry Smart should have chosen to place the emphasis of his inquiry on discovering what postmodernity might mean in terms of the functioning of societies in the late-twentieth century. His exploration of the theories propounded by such as Foucault, Baudrillard and Eco, whilst thorough and illuminating, is therefore geared primarily towards establishing an understanding of the pertinent issues as they operate within the sociopolitical sphere; there is very little here that might assist us in our understanding of the relationship between postmodernity and hermeneutics, for example, or between postmodernity and metaphysics (a particularly fractious and intriguing coupling). True, there is mention of 'substantial, possibly increasing constituencies of people for whom a sacred, "other-worldly" orientation continues to be of fundamental significance' (pp. 113-14), but this is so fleeting as to be almost meaningless, and again suffers from the author's reluctance to augment his sociological readings with a fuller variety of approaches so as to do justice to the subject under discussion. The brief passages in which Smart undertakes an examination of Heidegger and his conception of Being as it has undergone change from medieval times to the present are especially interesting, since ...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image