I hate to go back to the now time-old argument about whether or not postmodernism is anything new or just some rearticulation of modernity, etc. but i struggled throughout this text with the lack of distinction that Agemben makes between the state of zoe and bios in present versus throughout history. I understand somewhat clearly the connection of their collapse to our present moment that he mentions (p.

I forgot to post this a few weeks back, but the New York Times Magazine had an open call competition for college students to write about why college still matters...and the winning essay was written by some dude at Yale...who wrote all about postmodernism as his saving grace.

How much of postmodernist theory concerns writing about other postmodernist theory? Each author we've read, except Althusser, spends a sizable portion of their article jockeying for position among other theorists. I am beginning to wonder where this constant validation originates. Is it merely an inevitable facet of a movement based on questioning structures/movements/history? Can
postmodernist theorists overcome this (annoying) tendency?

Can someone gloss the movement from 'unrepeatable genius' (Anderson, 93) and 'great individual signatures and master-works...[and] norms of charisma' (Anderson, 63) to the postmodern alternative (whatever that is)? I have a very stupid reading of it - 'Geniuses have gone extinct!' - and an equally stupid refutation, which basically involves providing examples of authors and artists and directors that I think of as geniuses. I understand that more is going on there, but the above reading/refutation is just a kneejerk that I deliver every time an author touches on the 'genius question.'