Over the past two decades, the term postmodern has crept into presidential studies. Despite this, the notion of applying the term to the presidency may obscure more than it reveals. Throughout this period, various political scientists such as Rose, Barilleaux, Schier, Bruce Miroff, and others, as well as communications scholars like Shawn Parry-Giles and Trevor Parry-Giles have merged the term postmodern with the study of the presidency; yet there continues to be no agreement on what exactly the postmodern presidency is or represents. For some, the postmodern presidency signifies a distinct era, fundamentally different from those of the past. For others, the postmodern characteristics and leadership style necessary to govern in a changing political and social landscape define the contemporary presidency. Thus, despite being used for nearly two decades, the term postmodern continues to be mired in ambiguity. With the many differing views that make up the literature of the postmodern presidency, numerous questions arise. Is the onset of the postmodern presidency a result of a fundamental shift in the presidency, occurring regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, or is it better characterized as a shift in the individual traits of presidents necessary to govern during a newly emerging era? Does the core of the postmodern presidency center on foreign policy as a reflection of the end of the Cold War, or can it be better attributed to the rise of public politics, the decline of political parties, and the onslaught of media coverage that surround the contemporary presidency? The following chapters attempt to analyze the concept of the postmodern presidency, comparing the many definitions and timeframes that surround the term as a means of critically examining the existing work on the postmodern presidency. / Master of Arts

This dissertation is a case study of an agency attempting to continue to operate in terms of an outmoded paradigm, one whose foundation is based on a reference point for decision and action that does not fit the social, political and organizational conditions of postmodernity. The orientation of the study is toward public administration as political process; a political process which reflects the postmodern condition. Postmodern tendencies in culture and society are characterized by a particularly salient "thinning" of reality or development of hyper-reality where communication has lost the check on authenticity found in dialogue. This thinning of the macro culture exists in dialectical contradiction to more robust communities of discourse developing in enclaves in a tendency referred to as neotribalism. These dialectical tendencies lead to "simulated politics," where political entrepreneurs traffic in symbols rather than deeds and substantive policy making is restrained. This development favors those who benefit from the status quo. The Census Bureau is the focal agency. It is facing a crisis of legitimacy in its standoff with the Republican-controlled Congress over its plan to use sampling and estimation to produce a statistically adjusted apportionment count for Census 2000. The case of the Census 2000 stand-off between technocrats at the Census Bureau, supported by the Democratic Clinton administration and organizations and governmental entities that are adversely affected by census undercounts, and the Republican-dominated Congress, is an example of non-dialogic communication. It is masked by a trafficking in symbols and potentially will most likely lead to maintenance of the status quo in the form of traditional census methodology. This methodology differentially undercounts African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians and Asians, as compared to whites. Republicans compare the Census 2000 plan to use sampling to adjust the census for undercounts to the "Hillary Health Care Model" (a derogatory reference to the First Lady's involvement in public policy), describing it as a "polling technique," while Democrats and statisticians cast the argument of Republicans as one of "politicians trying to preserve their domain," and of playing "racial politics". The strategy of the Republican Congress appears to be to discredit the expertise of the Census Bureau and to rely on the legal process and a conservative Supreme Court to derail and nullify the plan for Census 2000, thus causing the agency to revert to the "status quo." Curiously, the Census Bureau has set itself up for this potential outcome by taking a strategically counterproductive and disastrously adversarial approach to the Congress. The Census Bureau has fundamentally misperceived the contemporary cultural environment and the politics that goes with it. It no longer can represent its own position as nonpolitical, value-free science, representing truth and moral right. This lack of perspective has critically hampered the agency's ability to negotiate in a political discourse appropriate to postmodernity. The goal of the study is to make a contribution to furthering organization-environment theory, with emphasis on the political environment. It is this aspect of organization theory generally that has most relevance to Public Administration but that has been least well developed. The dissertation is designed to conform to the traditional Inter-University Case Program (ICP) case study format. As such, the study addresses the broad issue of agency-environment relationship and the role of the public administrator within that environment. As with all ICP-type studies the research does not lead to an "answer." This is especially appropriate now because in the postmodern condition there is no one answer or truth to be found by rational analysis. Rather, ideas, insights, and various conclusions are offered. / Ph. D.

If traditional, modem philosophy of technology fails to genuinely understand the phenomena of technology, then emancipatory reflection, such as Don Ihde's, is required for philosophy of technology to have a future. Ihde's postmodern perspective and hermeneutic framework re-understands the meaning, knowledge and truth of technology as correlated with consciousness and embedded in cultures, while clarifying the relation between the interpreter and the technology he seeks to understand. The first part of my thesis argues that Ihde's philosophy of technology is generally postmodern for the following two main reasons: (1) Ihde's adaptation of the Husserlian model of intentionality, the basis of his phenomenology of human-technology relations, undermines the subject-object distinction prevalent in modem philosophy of technology, thereby recognizing the correlation between consciousness and technology; (2) by uncovering the cultural embeddedness of technologies, Hide rejects the emphasis of modem inquiry on the issue of whether we "control" technology, or it "controls" us. The second part of my thesis argues that Ihde's postmodern philosophy of technology is a hermeneutics of technology. His definition of technology, as an intentional understanding-relation with things, conceives of technology in terms of understanding itself. An implication of this emphasis on technology in praxis, rather than as substance, conceives of technology in a properly human way under the rubric of human agency, and although he never phrased it in this way, takes the techne out of technology. Finally, Hide's inquiry into technology is a call to learn the art of response-ability when attempting to understand technology. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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This project investigates the employment of new media technologies toward anarchistic revolutionary purposes in three postmodern texts: Williams S. Burroughs’s Nova Trilogy, Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, and Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. Spanning over three decades, these texts examine the continuous need for anarchist organizations to develop new and generative practices of resistant tactics against authoritarian hegemonic forces in order to remain relevant. This thesis explores how media technologies are used by these anarchist groups in order to break both the body and technology out of instrumentalizing purposes by apparatuses of control. In developing new embodiments that exist beyond the categorizations of power and authority, these authors demonstrate ways in which anarchist organizations are able to subvert the increasingly networked machinations of control and create potential embodied sites of resistance outside the realm of domination.

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Although written in the late twentieth century, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest takes place in the twenty-first century and is an extrapolation on social trends, namely the trend of ubiquitous technology and entertainment in American society. In this thesis, I explore, through a twenty-first century perspective, various topics in relation to the theme of technology in the novel. In order to show the all-encompassing influence of this theme, I divide my thesis into two main sections, by looking at the big picture (the structure of the novel) and the small picture (the individual characters and their relationships with one another). In the first chapter, I categorize Infinite Jest as a work of Menippean satire. In doing so, I suggest that the novel mimics the very culture it critiques, the fragmented culture of technology. In the second chapter, I look at the ways in which the characters communicate—or rather, don’t communicate—with one another. Through a discussion on the novel’s monologic quality, I then move into the third chapter, wherein I view the theme of solipsism as a product of the culture of technology. The fourth chapter is an examination of the role of the MacGuffin in the narrative. I argue that Wallace uses the MacGuffin and the novel’s lack of resolution as a metaphor for the search for meaning in a posthumanist world devoid of meaning and clarity. While each chapter contains a distinct discussion, ultimately the overarching goal of this thesis is to explore the effects, as depicted in Infinite Jest, of the posthumanist world on humanity. According to Wallace, good fiction shows the reader what it means to be a human being, yet in a technology and entertainment-driven world, wherein the line between reality and artificiality is blurred, the issue of what it means to be a human being is problematized. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

One of the core and primary functions of the school is to transmit knowledge from one generation to the next. The theory and practice of schooling (teaching and learning) should be founded on a sound concept of knowledge. A change in epistemology entails a change in approach to schooling. This study investigates how the postmodern idea of knowledge may affect schooling both in theory and practice. The author traces how the concept of knowledge has changed from modern to the postmodern era, in order to find the general features of the recent view of knowledge. The postmodern idea of knowledge is characterised by doubt about objective knowledge, the shift from universal reason to plural reason, criticism of foundationalism and awareness of the peculiar role of language. This study focuses on Richard Rorty's theory to analyse the postmodern idea of knowledge and its educational implication. In order to figure out the problems of postmodern epistemology, the author criticises Rorty's idea of knowledge immanently and transcendentally. Not only self-contradictions but also hidden foundations (or beliefs) in Rorty's idea of knowledge are revealed. This study comes to conclude that although the postmodern idea of knowledge reveals the shortcomings of the modern idea of knowledge, it also has many flaws in achieving a sound concept of knowledge. This study indicates an alternative view of knowledge from a Reformational perspective in order to overcome the shortcomings of postmodern epistemology. The author suggests a new possibility of objective knowledge based on the notion of creational law, and also various kinds of legitimate knowledge based on the multi-dimensional modality of reality. As a final point, this study suggests the notion of stewardship in education. Schooling should open up the multidimensional reality for students to become responsible stewards who care for the world and their fellow human beings. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

One of the core and primary functions of the school is to transmit knowledge from one generation to the next. The theory and practice of schooling (teaching and learning) should be founded on a sound concept of knowledge. A change in epistemology entails a change in approach to schooling. This study investigates how the postmodern idea of knowledge may affect schooling both in theory and practice. The author traces how the concept of knowledge has changed from modern to the postmodern era, in order to find the general features of the recent view of knowledge. The postmodern idea of knowledge is characterised by doubt about objective knowledge, the shift from universal reason to plural reason, criticism of foundationalism and awareness of the peculiar role of language. This study focuses on Richard Rorty's theory to analyse the postmodern idea of knowledge and its educational implication. In order to figure out the problems of postmodern epistemology, the author criticises Rorty's idea of knowledge immanently and transcendentally. Not only self-contradictions but also hidden foundations (or beliefs) in Rorty's idea of knowledge are revealed. This study comes to conclude that although the postmodern idea of knowledge reveals the shortcomings of the modern idea of knowledge, it also has many flaws in achieving a sound concept of knowledge. This study indicates an alternative view of knowledge from a Reformational perspective in order to overcome the shortcomings of postmodern epistemology. The author suggests a new possibility of objective knowledge based on the notion of creational law, and also various kinds of legitimate knowledge based on the multi-dimensional modality of reality. As a final point, this study suggests the notion of stewardship in education. Schooling should open up the multidimensional reality for students to become responsible stewards who care for the world and their fellow human beings. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.