The post-postmodern subject: The role of narrative imagination in construing of the subject

Abstract

The so-called "postmodern turn" has produced a sense of turmoil in contemporary philosophy and the humanities, subverting the Western mind and provoking doubts in its existence, sense of meaning and purpose. It disputes almost all basic premises of modernity. For example, notions such as: the self, the subject, imagination, became a target of vicious attacks by postmodern thinkers. Counter to the modern notion of the subject, the postmodern subject lacks an essential core of identity: it is fragmented, decentered, in the process of perpetual change or disintegration. A "thinking and reflecting" subject who looks inward to inspect the self is denied, as neither such an interiorized being that examines, conceptualize and interacts with others, nor interiority as such, exist. The subject is nowadays advised to search outward for the ways to interact with the social world, because this a privileged way of construing one's self. In similar fashion, imagination is obliterated and devoid of its creative powers. The "imaginary", as a reference to an impersonal entity, is substituted for the notion of imagination. While the latter stands for an "author" or "creator" who produces or creates images, the former is nothing creative in itself. The outcome is that, in the postmodern theory, the imagination is seen as an obsolete mental ability which is deposed of its power to create meaning. My intention in this paper is not to reanimate the modern notions of the self, the subject and imagination, but rather to consent with the postmodern verdict and proceed onward. It is my intention to build a post-postmodern notion of the self. The purpose of my paper is to introduce a post-Jungian account of the importance that the narrative and imagination have in human life for the constitution of subjectivity and the self.