"The hypermarket is already...the model of all future forms of controlled socialization: retotalization in a homogeneous space-time of all the dispersed functions of the body, and of social life...; retranscription of the contradictory fluxes in terms of integrated circuits; space-time of a whole operational simulation of social life, of a whole structure of living and traffic." (76)

How does this statement map onto considerations of space & time in Harvey and Jameson?

Just kind of a random thought, but it seems like maybe to solve the problem of modeling some of the interpenetrating, complex, and non-cartesian spaces we've been studying, (language games, spaces of production, class structure) you could start to look at the logic behind manifolds from math/physics. I don't know all that much about them beyond that they're important in modern physics, and what it says on the Wikipedia page , so it would be very cool for someone with a more developed background in physics or math to chime in.

Re: relating Henri Bergson to Jameson and Harvey--

I found a big paradox between what Harvey calls "the ephemerality of images" and the impact logos in advertsing (which are perhaps the most concrete examples of images that pervade every aspect of our lives). Just take this quiz to get a better notion of what I'm talking about: (I bet you'll be able to identify most, if not all, very easily, which I think proves how images are NOT as ephemeral as Harvey contends). http://www.logoquiz.net/

First of all, Jameson's identification of two related but different working definitions for postmodernism made sense of a lot of things for me. Lyotard's use of "postmodern" as "the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed societies" is all encompassing: things in current society are postmodern because everything in this age is postmodern. The state of knowledge for all is different because of changes in our world. But as Jameson says, "I am far from feeling that all cultural production today is 'postmodern' in the broad sense I will be conferring to the term".

Well, as usual, I take objection to about half of the claims that the author makes. In this instance, the subject of *admiration* is Harvey. I don't know if it is a function of the time this particular piece was written in, but his ideas seem oddly out of place. I guess I just don't have an issue with society and these authors, being social critics, do. So here goes my critic of the critic: