Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- THE CASE FOR POSTMODERNISM AS SOCIAL THEORY
- CONTESTING FOUNDATIONS: THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION
- 6 The end of sociological theory
- 7 The theoretical subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American feminism
- 8 Contingent foundations: Feminism and the question of ‘postmodernism’
- 9 Subjectivity in social analysis
- HUMAN STUDIES AS RHETORIC, NARRATIVE, AND CRITIQUE
- POSTMODERN SOCIAL ANALYSIS: EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS
8 - Contingent foundations: Feminism and the question of ‘postmodernism’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- THE CASE FOR POSTMODERNISM AS SOCIAL THEORY
- CONTESTING FOUNDATIONS: THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION
- 6 The end of sociological theory
- 7 The theoretical subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American feminism
- 8 Contingent foundations: Feminism and the question of ‘postmodernism’
- 9 Subjectivity in social analysis
- HUMAN STUDIES AS RHETORIC, NARRATIVE, AND CRITIQUE
- POSTMODERN SOCIAL ANALYSIS: EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS
Summary
The question of postmodernism is surely a question, for is there, after all, something called postmodernism? Is it an historical characterization, a certain kind of theoretical position, and what does it mean for a term that has described a certain aesthetic practice now to apply to social theory and to feminist social and political theory in particular? Who are these postmodernists? Is this a name that one takes on for oneself, or is it more often a name that one is called if and when one offers a critique of the subject, a discursive analysis, or questions the integrity or coherence of totalizing social descriptions?
I know the term from the way it is used, and it usually appears on my horizon embedded in the following critical formulations: “if discourse is all there is, …,” or “if everything is a text …” or “if the subject is dead …” or “if real bodies do not exist …?” The sentence begins as a warning against an impending nihilism, for if the conjured content of these series of conditional clauses proves to be true, then, and there is always a then, some set of dangerous consequences will surely follow. So ‘postmodernism’ appears to be articulated in the form of a fearful conditional or sometimes in the form of paternalistic disdain toward that which is youthful and irrational.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Postmodern TurnNew Perspectives on Social Theory, pp. 153 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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