sábado, 29 de março de 2014

After-postmodern timing


20th century`s Sci-Fi could not imagine mobile phones… At those days people imagined several kinds of complicated machines for everything, but not some so simple and, at same time, so complex as a mobile phone. Maybe “The Jetsons” approached something similar with that “talking watch”… But nothing as a small computer shooter talker photographer library etc. etc. that you can carry inside your pocket.
This great invention, maybe one of the greatest in history of mankind, brought even a kind of new step for democracy and citizenship… How many people can achieve information of the entire world and, at same time, can communicate anything…
But, everything has, at least, two sides… So, mobile phones also changed the human timing… People are forgetting patience, forgetting to wait, to wait for anything… to be far from anything… to be unwired… “Unplugged”… So the only time is now and in a not poetical way, or even philosophical…
This one of the greatest after-postmodern paradoxes.
      

terça-feira, 11 de março de 2014

After-postmodern University – Part 4


The postmodern period can be divided in two parts: the first from 1950 to 1989 and the second from 1990 to 2008 approximately. Historical periodization is not exactly determined. The transition between eras is a blurred zone. So, some characteristics of the precedent period can persist in the next.
When Bill Readings writes about University he is in the nineties of the 20th century. At this time, postmodern ideas and practices were in the apex, with the so called “excellency criteria” cited by Readings as the main target of that institution. He criticizes that criteria and sees the “modern University”, from the modern era, lost in its original meaning as a focus of Culture linked to nation-state; with the economic “globalization” of the end of the 20th century, the nation-state was weaker more and more.
With the end of the postmodernity, globalization became weaker and entered in a new step that we do not know yet where it will go. The nation-state regained a new form that we also do not know where it will go.
In that way, after-postmodern University is not anymore in that entire “excellency standard” even with the continuing use of that word in international rankings. Nevertheless, current internationalization of university is not quite the same as the former “globalization”; that internationalization can be seen under the net and complexity theories.
Maybe the after-postmodern University could have some mixed characteristics of modern and postmodern universities, looking for a kind of “Humanized Excellency”.