After postmodernism

Redgate, J. (2022) After postmodernism. In: O'Donnell, P., Burn, S. J. and Larkin, L. (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction 1980–2020. Wiley, pp. 1-9. ISBN 9781119431718 (doi: 10.1002/9781119431732.ecaf0251)

Abstract

It should be quite simple to summarize the state of American literature and culture after the end of postmodernism, given that it ended with the end of history itself. According to Francis Fukuyama, writing in the summer of 1989 before the Berlin Wall fell, “we may be witnessing not just the end of the Cold War … but the end of history as such: that is, the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy.” When the Soviet Union was finally dissolved in December 1991, Fukuyama's prediction seemed assured. The Cold War was over. The Western Enlightenment “idea,” upon which the United States had been founded, had, despite a century of apparent setbacks, won out in the end. After a century of endings – a century of “posts” of all sorts: postmodernism, posthumanism, postcolonialism, and now post-history – it looked like we were in for a sort of posthumous age, a conflictless, post-victory era of unstoried “boredom.”

• Item Type: Book Sections (Encyclopaedia entry)
• Additional Information: eISBN - 9781119431732
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Redgate, Dr Jamie
• Authors: Redgate, J.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISBN: 9781119431718