Goddamn Lyotard!

Mumbo Jumbo immerses readers in a web of alternative historical narratives that challenge the Atonist status quo and promote critical reflection on the role of history, mythology, and art in our world today. The world Reed creates seems both confusing and fundamentally equivalent to the one we've been taught about, and this duality can be seen in the story of Warren G. Harding. I've tried to dig up "real" historical information regarding this unpopular president and his untimely death in order to expose exactly how compelling Reed's theories can be. First of all, nobody likes Warren G. Harding. Most sources rank Harding as the nation's fourth or fifth-worst president due to his tax reforms favoring corporations, restrictive immigration policies, multiple bribery scandals, illegal drinking during Prohibition, and extramarital affairs with much (31 years!) younger women. Harding is also known for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal, during which his administra...

We read a chapter of Sarah Maza's book, Thinking About History, in order to better understand the development, manifestation, and critical response to postmodernist thought in academia. Maza explains that the search for historical "truth" is grounded in Western modes of suppression that benefit a sexist, racist, and elitist system. As such, postmodern theory came under attack by conservative historians who claimed that such theories would debase their purely emperical (and purely white, male, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant) field. I can understand why conservative theorists would be hesitant to accept postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas about historical inquiry, though I was most surprised to learn that leftist scholars also have their qualms about postmodernism. I was especially interested to read that many feminist scholars, such as Laura Lee Downs, believe postmodernism actually suppresses more than it frees. I read Laura Lee Down's landmark article, "If ...