Chaos, territory, music research

The post-postmodern academy, according to Bennettââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s editorial in New Formations, is a backward-looking place. It returns to pre-postmodernist styles of thought that were typical of the 1950s. Commenting on some of the conservative attitudes that have recently resurfaced, he writes that ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“what postdates postmodernism turns out to be what predated itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢. In this scenario, the master narratives of modernism reassert themselves: thought patterns characteristic of old (humanist) ways of thinking are reterritorialized. The (old) elitist, aesthetic tradition (which had been temporarily interrupted by postmodernism) re-establishes its territory, giving rise to what Kuspit (in Bennett) calls a ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"New Old Master Artââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢. The conservative character of the post-postmodernist academic in the neo-liberal institution, with its intensification of individualism, blocks all that might be opened up, as Bennettââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s publication vividly demonstrates, by the splendid ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“chaosââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ of postmodernism. In music, as Bennett argues, there is still much to be explored from a postmodernist perspective. He observes that although there may be ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“neo-conservative signatures on the death certificates of postmodernism and birth certificates of post-postmodernismââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢, the idea that postmodernismââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s work has exhausted itself (an idea he briefly entertains but then dismisses), especially in music, is unsustainable. There is still much life-blood left in the old postmodern body and much work for it yet to do.