The Postmodern Sword
In our contemporary world, the world of the postmodern, the sword has all but lost its use value, and it therefore exists primarily not as a weapon, but as a sign.
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:05 Fake Swords
4:18 The Treachery of Typologies
8:10 The Sword as a Sign
12:32 Our Mediated World
18:58 Specialists & The Hyperreal
23:13 Outro
Twitter: @study_of_swords
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Sources:
Owing to character limits I am not able to post the bibliography, please see the following google doc for access.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I...
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Notes:
1. Oakshott, 1996. Pg. 200.
2. For example, a casual perusal of the r/swords subreddit will reveal the commonality of questions about the authenticity of shin guntō. https://www.reddit.com/r/SWORDS/searc...
3. Tzouriadis, 2019. Pg. 5.
4. This was revealed to me in a dream.
5. Tritonia Sword, original.
6. Johnsson, 2005.
7. Baudrillard, 1994. Pg. 6.
8. Ibid.,
9. Lyon, 2018.
10. Deutscher, Lisa., 2019. Pg. xviii.
11. Yallop, 2019. This is a more complex issue than it appears, as there was a British cavalry unit who was equipped with swords, who fought in the Lebanon-Syria campaign of 1941. As the 1908/1912 model was the last produced for use in combat, and was last widely used in WWI, it is reasonable to posit the end of this conflict as the effective terminus of the service life of the sword in the army.
12. Johnsson, April 28, 2020.
13. Loades, 2017. Pg. 209.
14. Baudrillard, 2020. Pg. 84.
15. “US Marines – Sword”
16. Ibid.,
17. Trevithick, 2018.
18. Gudgel, 2018.
19. “Members”, 2011.
20. “Swords”, 2020.
21. Wilson, 2016.
22. Miura, 2003. Pg. 190
23. Sarup, 1993. Pg. 164.
24. Baudrillard, 2020. Pg. 156.
25. “Star Wars” 2017.
26. Chandler, 2017. Pg. 90.
27. Baudrillard, 2020. Pg. 55.
28. Jameson, 1991. Pg. ix.
29. Gottdiener, 1995. Pg. 56.
30. Baurdillard, 2020. Pg. 86, footnote 10.
31. All one needs do is examine the discussion(s) in the HEMAsphere about groups like Holmgang Hamburg to see how even approaching the use of swords as weapons to deliberately injure opponents is met with scorn and ridicule.
32. Ren Faires, Historic Encampments, HEMA demonstrations, and the newly invented tradition of the ‘wedding sword’ are all fascinating in their own respects, but can hardly be considered as constituting anything beyond highly contextualized and specialist spaces.
33. Jameson, 1991. Pg. 25.
34. “Recreations not Replicas”, accessed August 16, 2021.
35. Sarup, 1993. Pg. 166
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Music
“Mystery” by GoSoundtrack Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International
“Two days” by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
“The Simulation Hypothesis” by Revolution Void is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
“Ma'am” by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
“Do it” by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License
“Chiefs” by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
“Ruins” by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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