Postmodernism transforms the pain of unbelonging into a celebrated utopia

Evidence

From all such groundings one had ‘floated upwards’, even as one constantly thrashed about denouncing all, undifferentiaredly, that one had left behind. In an earlier rime, right into the heart of modernism, such desolations of the self were still experienced quire frequently as a loss; what posrmodernism has done is to validate precisely the pleasures of such unbelonging, which is rehearsed now as a utopia, so that belonging nowhere is nevertheless construed as the perennial pleasure of belonging everywhere. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 622

Categorization

• XREF: Joins the Jameson/postmodernism debates and the desolation-vs-utopia of unbelonging to Spivak’s strategic essentialism debate. — connects to: Postmodernism transformed the modernist experience of self-loss into a celebrated utopia of unbelonging — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 271; The utopian ideal of deconstructive existence may already be socially realized as postmodernism — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 732; Postmodernist theorists conflate describing cultural change with celebrating it (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Postmodernism transformed the modernist experience of self-loss into a celebrated utopia of unbelonging #corroborates (1.00) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 271
• The utopian ideal of deconstructive existence may already be socially realized as postmodernism #corroborates (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 732
• Postmodernist theorists conflate describing cultural change with celebrating it #qualifies (0.80)
• Metropolitan postmodern critique delegitimizes acknowledging exile’s pain #qualifies (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 231