Categories
2006 Abstracts Stage 2

Death in Venice or Death of Man?

What will be discussed is the elements of form and dissolution, the discrepancies between meaning and manner, between profits of decay and the state of man. However perhaps the most interesting aspect is that of the correlation between Venice’s decline and Ashenbach struggle. This conflict is the same as we see today between the destruction and confusion that Modernism has erupted. Our Postmodern society is frayed with ambiguity and fragmentation. The decline of our own morality and our own purpose is still concurrent with that of our city. The search for truth has become a notion tainted by its own paradoxical character. The question is where does man go from here? Or is it merely that like Ashenbach, we remain struggling within ourselves. Works cited will comprise the question of Lyotard’s Postmodern theory attributed to Nietzsche and the question of Nihilism. As well as Structuralism and Deconstructionalist activity with reference to Derrida Barthes and Foucault.