Duncan Hubber

One of the major philosophical concerns for modernists was the effects of urbanisation and industrialisation on the mind of the individual. Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin both equate the modern individual with a sense of dislocation and detachment, as though some vital part of our selfhood and creative potential has been severed by modernisation. They reveal in their work a tendency to romanticise pre-modern society, referencing the greater cohesion of rural communities and the “aura” present in singular artworks, now dissolved by big city anonymity and mechanical reproduction.

Selfhood is a central theme in HBO's Game of Thrones, with characters' motivations persistently shaped by interpretations of past events or their status within the multitude of institutions which bind up Westerosi society. One of the perpetual dilemmas throughout the series (for characters and viewers) is figuring out what to believe in: who to kneel to, who to pray to, and whether blood is thicker than oaths.

In his book Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, Alain Badiou identifies four philosophical spheres through which truth can be realised by the subject: politics, art, love, and science. He recognises each of these spheres as a fully independent “truth-procedure”, and relates them to the “event”, which he interprets as a point in which our established knowledge systems are ruptured by a particular truth. This essay will focus primarily on the political truth-procedures depicted in the film Fight Club (Fincher 1999), specifically how the act of fighting ruptures the lives of its characters, and how those characters then attempt to remain faithful to that event through militant activism. While exploring many of the theories posed by Badiou in his book, Fight Club can ultimately be interpreted as a truth-procedure turned evil, and perhaps even a nihilistic statement on the ethically doomed fates of all truth-procedures.

In Mallrats (1995), Kevin Smith interprets the American shopping mall as a distinctly cinematic and performative space. Like movies, malls are all about creating a fantasy, a simulacra of the real world, in which the shopper is privileged with the spectarial gaze, and feasts upon the visual and auditory pleasures laid out before them. The character Brodie signifies something of a postmodern (or anti-modern) flâneur, using consumerist and popular culture as way of mediating his place within society.

The maternal voice is a fantasy of origins: a representation of an individual’s pre-lingual, pre-cultural form, and their inauguration into subjectivity. Kaja Silverman writes that it is “a moment prior to the creation of the world”, when the infant is wrapped in the “sonourous envelope” of the mother’s voice, and unaware of its own selfhood. However, this state of “uterine night” is soon severed once the child becomes aware that it is a separate entity from the mother, thus establishing the subject-and-object.

Julia Kristeva observes the “true-real” in Modern art and thought, and delineates it as the Saussurean “signifier” no longer being distinguished from its referent (or “signified”). Rather, the form of the sign (be it image, sound, smell) is treated as real, in the traditional Lacanian sense (Kristeva 215). This refers to a reality that exists outside of language and symbology—a reality that is true in and of itself—rather than materially evident, and assimilated into. Urbanisation, a distinctly modern mode of living, can be understood as an attempt to suppress and repress the true-real, to separate mankind (that is, the masculine collective, as well as the wider humanity) from the symbolic maternity of nature and the earth (Mahoney 172).

The philosopher Jean-François Lyotard defines the “postmodern condition” as incredulity towards metanarratives. The purpose of this inquiry is to examine George R. R. Martin’s critique of metanarratives within A Song of Ice and Fire.  The term “metanarrative” refers to a unifying story which seeks to explain how the world works. It is a grand, totalising theory, which incorporates all other narratives (be they literary, philosophical, or historical) into its framework. This thesis argues that A Song of Ice and Fire subverts the structural metanarrative of the fantasy genre, as well as various contextual metanarratives (feudalism, religion, patriarchy), within its texts. By undermining (and ultimately rejecting) the legitimacy of these metanarratives (from both a reader and character standpoint), Martin and his texts embody a postmodern viewpoint.

The thesis concludes that Martin’s work realises Lyotard’s vision of plurality over totality; that is, shifting from a single worldview (with a central meaning), to a multiplicity of micro-narratives (with many possible perspectives). Martin realises his fantasy world and narrative, not through the omnipotent, overarching narration of J. R. R. Tolkien, but through localised point-of-view chapters, each focusing on the thoughts, fears and dreams of an individual character, and the ways in which they interpret and interact with the world. It is therefore one of the first truly postmodern entries into the fantasy genre.

The Eureka Bakery, later called Davies Bakery, is one of the oldest industries in Ballarat. The business was operating as far back as 1858, only a few years after the founding of Ballarat. It was owned and run by two prominent Ballarat families—the Gray's (from 1858-1894) and the Davies' (from 1894-1962)—before being sold to the Bunge Group, and becoming part of Sunicrust Bakeries. Though the original factory is no longer standing, the business lives on through Sunicrust Ballarat, and Davies Bakery Pty. Ltd. (located in Broadmeadows).