Postmodernism

Postmodernism is one of the most widespread terms within our contemporary critical vocabulary. In the last two decades it has penetrated almost every field of the humanities. Literature, cultural studies, sociology, philosophy and politics all bear the marks of its theoretical wrangling. A trawl of the catalogue of any university library will reveal hundreds of titles that feature the term ‘postmodern’, the majority of which were published after 1990. Despite this incontestable modishness, attempts to understand and apply the term remain highly varied. The critic Simon Malpas explains: