The postmodern imagination

Agnes Heller

pp. 1-13

in: Chris Pierson, Simon Tormey (eds), Politics at the edge, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

Nowadays "postmodern" is a household expression and slogan. The so-called "postmoderns' are both celebrated and abused. The words "postmodern", "postmodernism" and "posthistoire" mean something different for almost each and every author. It seems as if the term "postmodern" can no longer be introduced into a serious conversation. At the same time, however, one can hardly avoid speaking of the postmodern in one or another sense. For the term "postmodern" occupies an empty place in the contemporary understanding of modernity itself, and this empty place needs somehow to be baptized. In my book A Theory of History, written in the early 1980s, I baptized it as "historical consciousness of reflected generality". I must admit that this name is too long and complicated. "Postmodern" is a good nickname. It can be better employed in a discourse, provided that I explain the meaning of the term in my theory of history and modernity.