I'm forwarding a portion of a message from Greg Ulmer (a post-modernist if anyone is) dealing with the term 'fetish' that we recently discussed on Pen-l. This commentary throws a new twist on my assertion that post-modernism takes a similar approach to language as Marx takes in his analysis of the commodity fetish. > 1--fetishturgy approaches "fetish" from a position considerably >different from your starting point. The point of departure is the status >of the term "fetish" historically as pidgin Portuguese, used by >Portuguese traders along the "Guinea Coast" in the 1500s to name objects >whose valuation in African economy defied European valuation systems. >You probably know the excellent history written on this term. I am more >interested in pidgin in general, in the discourse network of colonialism, >as an analogy for projecting how a postcolonial "cyberpidgin" (contact >between non-similar cultures online) might be theorized and practiced. >One of the special features of interest in this linguistic context is >that while there were and are many other pidgin terms from this same >historical moment, "fetish" has a unique history. During the seminar we >explored the way in which nearly the entire history of modern theory >could be studied as the dissemination of *fetish* into Western society. >The heuretic approach, moreover, suggests that any such phenomenon be >studied not only from the theoretical (hermeneutic) side, but also from >the side of art making. In this respect it is important to note the >Western theorists tended to use *fetish* in a pejorative, denigrative >sense (with various degrees of inflection), while artists tended to >embrace *fetish* as a model for a new practice. One implication is that >it might be interesting to look at some other pidgin terms, to consider >what they name, and speculate what will have the case if they had been >taken up in the same way. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
