Ok! I finally got through the Jameson. I would just like to echo KF’s plea that we should NOT ever, under any circumstance, emulate Jameson’s writing style. Yuck. That said, I do feel as though Jameson brings up some interesting issues revolving around the “Postmodern” that were especially alluring, namely explorations of the term that involved architecture.
Something in the tangible nature of architecture--and the careful deliberation with which architecture MUST executed—really solidified many of Jameson’s concepts about the Postmodern dilemma for me. Through the lens of architecture, I also grasped how he used the terms “nostalgia,” “pastiche,” and the “waning of affect” (although this last one seems a bit contradictory to me for reasons I’ll elaborate on in a minute).
I didn’t think Jameson’s use of “nostalgia” was spot on (even he admits this) because it is devoid of the sadness that typically accompanies the term. Instead—as seen through architectural examples—Jameson employs the term to mean something of a playful quotation of past styles, which are thrown together with gusto. In essence, it is the “pastness” that triumphs, and it doesn’t matter how many references are chocked into one building. By defining “nostalgia” (which really is not a good name for this term, as stated above) in these ways, Jameson captures a characteristic of Postmodernism that, at least for me, seems to be present in many aesthetic presentations of the concept.
From this hollowed-out representation of history through “pastness,” Jameson contends that a “pseudohistorical depth” and collection of “aesthetic styles displace ‘real’ history.” I am not 100% sure I agree with this generalization, and I would love to tease it out a bit more. (Page 20)
The most problematic aspect of the whole architecture illustration for me was Jameson’s insertion of the “waning of affect” as a trait of Postmodernism. True, it seems as though the age in which he writes is more focused on the mechanical nature of reproduction (a la Benjamin) and less so on the individual genius (and brushstroke) of past modernist eras. However, I do see architect as being fully infused with affect/tell-tale signs of individuality in the postmodern! For example, the Vanna Venturi House (http://www.vsba.com/projects/fla_archive/10.html, designed by Robert Venturi, who is mentioned by Jameson) is most definitely the distinctive work on Venturi. And his style is easily distinguished from other architects by way of handfuls of features, of “individual brushstrokes,” if you will.
In closing, I really was happy with the use of architectural models to describe the Postmodern condition. I do not feel it is because architecture is more heavily tied to the economic structure, as Jameson proposes, but rather, as I said above, that architecture requires so much thought and intent that is serves as a beautiful and thoughtful testament to theory of the age.
I also found the Jameson passage about "pseudohistory" intriguing. I was thinking about his analysis in relation to dominant forms of multiculturalist ideology whereby, for instance, elementary school students are made to "explore other cultures" by eating exotic/exotified foods, watching "traditional" dances, studying "indigenous" religions, etc. without ever discussing colonialism, exploitation of labor, or militarism (to name only a few historical and contemporary travesties). Indeed, such sociopolitical dimensions of otherness are avoided like the plague, which ends up, in some sense aestheticizing away history altogether: we talk about history, but only insofar as the "history of aesthetic styles" is concerned (for instance, the foods that Native Americans used to eat, or rituals they used to partake in). I'm tempted to say that this is because "'real' history," as Jameson calls it, has already rendered marginalized groups such as Native Americans obsolete. Capital "H" History has "moved on," as Hegel might informally put it; the only way to experience Otherness is through commodifiable representations.
Also, I think your point about the individualized brushstroke of the architect, so to speak, in the postmodern period might be best conceptualized as a paradox of sorts. I found this Harvey passage particularly relevant: "at the very time that postmodernism proclaims the 'death of the author' and the rise of anti-auratic art in the public realm, the art market becomes ever more conscious of the monopoly power of the artist's signature and of questions of authenticity and forgery" (292). Postmodern theory rejects the notion that the author can produce autonomously; yet the esotericism of art seems to have increased. Hm.
"I didn’t think Jameson’s use of “nostalgia” was spot on (even he admits this) because it is devoid of the sadness that typically accompanies the term."
On 'nostalgia':
If we go back and consider the 'waning of affect' that Jameson asserts as an implicit result of the social and cultural productions of the postmodern, we could perhaps see where Jameson might be eager to identify some element of emotion in amongst the patterns of self-referntiality. 'Nostalgia' rings of loss felt deeply, where, if I understand your argument, you feel that there is nothing felt in the composite architecture that is present in the postmodern.
Yet, I would argue that there is something almost tragic in this use and reuse that Jameson speaks of. When on page 21, in his discussion of glossy representation of the '30s and '40s, Jameson seems to associate a sort of sadness to our inability to fashion "representations of our own current experience." I understood his point to be that because of the way we have learnt to represent the past ("with a spell and distance of a glossy mirage" p. 21), our sense of present can only be articulated through the same collection of marketable signifiers. For me, this represents a lack and a longing: a lack of true connection with our present condition, with an authentic language to address our multinational capitalist experience; and a longing for the modern sensibility which was, indeed, very much about its own historicity. In this sense, the 'nostalgic feeling' seems not so much a longing for a specific moment in time, but for a historical ability to connect and name the world in ways much hindered by the breadth and simulaecrum of the postmodern experience.
Yes, totally agree with Anonymous in regards to Nostalgia. I also think that Jameson meant to describe this sentiment in the bigger picture, in the sense that we have lost the connection to the past by use of simalcrum. He describes simalcrum as an "identical copy for which no original has ever existed", and this condition is what separates the present from our past and consequently produces this nostalgia.