Postmodernism

Postmodernism is not so much a theory or school but a mood, reacting to the objectivity of what postmodernists feel to be a modernist culture - defined by science, authority and metanarratives. The word postmodernism borders on tautology - modern is usually understood to mean current, but how can postmodernism be post-now? Postmodernism also has another problem: that in its advocacy of rejecting metanarratives, it is itself creating a metanarrative.

Postmodernism has become popular since the 1980s, where it came out of various strands of critical theory, including poststructuralism, deconstruction and a new focus on issues of gender, race and identity (see queer theory, postcolonialism).