Postmodernism

This course introduces postmodernism through a close reading of Jean-François Lyotard’s foundational text, The Postmodern Condition. To facilitate this, each day’s reading is accompanied by an introductory text in Sinhala designed to reconstruct Lyotard’s arguments for a local audience. Neither a literal translation nor a simple adaptation, this companion text elucidates and illustrates complex points while remaining faithful to the original, functioning as a conceptual translation that ensures a comprehensive mastery of the work.

This initiative marks the first phase of a broader trajectory exploring the philosophical foundations of Sri Lanka's "1990s" intellectual movement. Future courses will engage directly with the primary texts of key figures such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. We maintain that genuine intellectual engagement requires confronting original works rather than relying on secondary commentary. Ultimately, this course equips participants to contextualize the philosophies we oppose rather than the philosophical positions we espouse. Hence the umbrella term underwhich we organize these courses: "anti-philosophy of 90s".

Participation, however, requires no commitment to our long-term intellectual project; the course remains open to anyone seeking a rigorous grounding in postmodern thought. Given the scarcity of sustained, cover-to-cover readings of Lyotard within Sri Lanka's present intellectual landscape, we offer a depth of engagement unavailable elsewhere in the country. Far from a promotional claim, this reality reflects a concerning decline in local academic discourse—a decline that the Colombo School of Philosophy actively seeks to counter through initiatives of this caliber.