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Cornel West (March 28, 1988) Part 2 of 229:28

Cornel West continues engaging the audience in a debate and discussion about transgression and the status quo. He calls Craig Owens and Hal Foster “transgressive postmodernists.” West asks, “to what degree are architectural practices more privileged then other cultural practices?” He questions how transgression affects that privilege and considers architecture privileged “because is it so thoroughly dependent on huge amounts of capital.” West calls Thomas Pynchon the greatest postmodernist novelist. He asks if there an architectural equivalent of Thomas Pynchon and answers, “Hell no.” West further debates privilege, capital, economics and architecture with the audience. He talks about early oppositional figures, and wonders about “oppositional architects” and architecture today.

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