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No Outside History: Reconsidering Postmodernism

Is postmodernism really a threat to history?

Dr Robert Parkes, University of Newcastle

In this paper, I want to explore the relationship nationwide, the Australian Curriculum (and by between postmodernism and history. I will argue implication the Australian Curriculum: History) that postmodern theory, far from killing history as will be ‘reviewed’ by Kevin Donnelly, a well-known its critics suggest, is a profoundly historicist mode ‘conservative educationalist,’ and Kenneth Wiltshire, of thought that extends the gaze of the historian so a ‘conservatively inclined business academic.’2 This nothing escapes it, not even themselves. This is its review, initiated by the Federal Education Minister, great challenge to the historian and history educator. Christopher Pyne, demonstrates the conservative Although it may seem a little late to be defending concern that school curriculum has ‘hidden “cultural- postmodern theory in history education, I am leftist” influence at every turn.’3 Such concerns are not motivated in this task by the bad press postmodernism new. To some extent they motivated John Howard’s continues to receive, particularly whenever school call for a national curriculum back in 2006, when he is curricula are brought up. While I share some of the quoted as claiming that schools were ‘falling victim to concern shown by historians, educators, and social postmodernism and political correctness,’4 echoing theorists towards aspects of cultural postmodernism, the anxieties of conservative media commentators I offer a more sympathetic reading of postmodern who asserted that postmodernism was damaging theory (philosophical postmodernism) than is typical English education.5 Donnelly himself has claimed among historians and history educators.1 In particular, that postmodern theory’s rejection of absolutes or I will argue for the importance of recognising the truths has resulted in a population of young people complexity of postmodernism’s relationship to history, who ‘are morally bereft and know nothing of civility or particularly the idea that nothing stands outside respect for the common good.’6 Even one of Australia’s history, and make some brief comments regarding its premier ‘black armband’ historians, Henry Reynolds, implications for history educators. has declared postmodernism to be history, quoted by Justine Ferrari as saying that postmodernism ‘just goes The Problem of Postmodernism round and round, with lots of lights and colours and Even before it has been fully implemented doesn’t get you anywhere.‘7

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LEFT: South Within educational literature, discussions of observations of the postmodern milieu might suggest Sea Islanders postmodernism, and its implications for history that far from being erased, history is encountered loading 8 24 cane. Image education, are limited in scope and number. Arguably, everywhere. It may well be that the burgeoning trade reproduced postmodernism has been accused of encouraging the in historical television dramas such as The Borgias and with kind proliferation of revisionist histories,9 fostering cultural The Tudors; the explosion of interest in Family History permission relativism,10 and providing fertile ground for historical research encouraged by programmes such as Who Do of QLD State denial.11 As a philosophical force in history and You Think You Are and its web-based sponsor, Ancestry. Archives. historiography, postmodernism has been described as com; the retro-futurist Steampunk literary and an attack on historical reason,12 and an assault on the music phenomenon;25 and the continued popularity epistemological foundations of history as a discipline,13 of television documentaries, and print-based wilfully obscurant and politically paralysing,14 while historical fiction and cultural histories, demonstrate having little to do with professional historians,15 and a strong public interest in keeping history alive. nothing to offer serious historiography.16 Perhaps the postmodern moment in contemporary society, in triggering a profound sense of historical Cultural Postmodernism or the disorientation, has been precisely the catalyst for Logic of Postmodernity history’s re-assertion and renewal, albeit in recycled Notoriously difficult to define, postmodernism is an forms. elusive concept used to signify both our experience Philosophical Postmodernism or Postmodern of a new social order, and a widespread crisis in Theory as a Form of Historicism26 contemporary ways of knowing.17 Distinguishing between the cultural and the philosophical – two Philosophical postmodernism (or postmodern theory) related but different ways of thinking about is neither a systematic methodology, nor is it a single postmodernism – is important to the argument intellectual position. In his book Postmodernism and I wish to develop; and follows a well-accepted History, Willie Thompson describes it unflatteringly distinction between historical and methodological as ‘a quasi-theological form of discourse, repellent postmodernism.18 to all but the initiated and which will certainly come to figure as no more than a bizarre curiosity Cultural postmodernism, as a historical social of intellectual history.’27 Much of the literature on condition, is sometimes argued to be the result of a philosophical postmodernism is often difficult and transformation from nineteenth-century industrial opaque, and sometimes contradictory. Certainly, many society to late-twentieth century information society. commentators have felt that, because ‘postmodernism’ The argument goes that new technologies for travel, is used as a label for such a wide array of ideas, it is telecommunications and information transfer, have not particularly useful as a description of anything. transformed our experience of history.19 According However, I share the position of Michael Peters and to Gianni Vattimo, the present appears to involve a Nicholas Burbules, who see postmodern theory dehistoricisation of experience, especially through (in its most recognisable ‘poststructuralist’ form) the work of television (where we can see reruns of I as a mode of thinking, a style of philosophising, Dream of Jeanie alongside the latest episode of Game of and a kind of writing, that shares similar cynicism Thrones, for example), so ‘everything tends to flatten about claims to truth in the human and social out at the level of contemporaneity and simultaneity.’20 sciences.28 Jean-Francois Lyotard provided the most As a result, Vattimo believes we no longer experience succinct and quoted articulation of this idea when a strong sense of direction in worldly events. This he defined postmodernism as ‘incredulity towards collapse of the past into the present also reflects metanarratives,‘29 emphasising that the postmodern postmodernism as a cultural, artistic and literary style. condition is experienced as ‘a crisis of cultural As a style in literature, postmodernism involves authority,‘30 emerging alongside a proliferation of tendencies towards self-conscious irony and micronarratives, accompanied by an uncertainty disruption, in the form of fabulism and metafiction about whom or what we should believe. Certainly, any (techniques that involve abandoning ‘realism’ attempt at defining philosophical postmodernism and/or experimenting with ways of allowing the will inevitably be partial, and we will always face narrator to intrude into the text to make visible its the problem that many theorists we associate with constructed nature),21 and an increased emphasis on postmodern thought, such as Michel Foucault and ‘intertextuality’ (or the ‘borrowing’ of phrases and Jacques Derrida, actively disagreed, and resisted motifs from other texts making ‘authorship’ a complex being labelled postmodernists.31 However, I think phenomenon). As an artistic style postmodernism it is possible to come to some kind of definition or involves anachronism, collage, allegory and pastiche.22 understanding of philosophical postmodernism – It is sometimes defined by the idea of ‘the end of art’ while recognising that not everyone will agree with because of its tendency to mix and recycle older artistic my characterisation – and that it rests on the three forms in iconoclastic ways.23 main ideas or motifs inseparably associated with it.32 In the exploration of these three key ideas below, I Cultural postmodernism would appear to place will attempt to show how each notion in turn, is based our sense of history, and certainly our ideas about on a strong sense that our knowledge, our values, and historical development, under threat. However, ourselves as human beings, are historically constituted

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phenomena – that there is nothing outside history – Philosophical postmodernists also remain suspicious challenging the commonly held idea that philosophical of notions such as ‘progress’ and ‘development’ postmodernism occupies an anti-historical position. where these concepts are used to explain historical changes across human social systems, in terms The End of History (or Post-Universalism) that suggest a movement towards a moment of Let’s begin this exploration of the key ideas commonly final emancipation or a utopian future, recognising associated with philosophical postmodernism by that such grand representations are inevitably examining the most counter-intuitive notion of ‘the underpinned by selective interests.36 In other words, end of history.’ it is always necessary to determine who decides what constitutes successful progress. When philosophical This ‘post-universalist’ position manifests as postmodernists present accounts of historical change, the rejection of ‘totalising discourses’ or ‘grand they are typically characterised by a respect of the narratives.’ Philosophical postmodernists generally specific, local, different and peculiar, and are usually think of discourses as ‘authoritative statements.’33 provided tentatively, cautiously, and reluctantly, as Authoritative statements are utterances that make descriptions from the author’s own viewing position. claims about the world, and have either been written Where possible, they will resist talking in absolutes. or spoken by some ‘authority’ or have become repeated Thus, from a philosophical postmodernist position, so often that then are now part of every day ‘common- authoritative statements are read as necessarily sense’ (and their authoritativeness is assumed). partial and through that partiality, constitute and A statement such as ‘women are more emotional construct, incite and induce, rather than simply than men’ is this kind of authoritative statement or document and describe, the reality we come to know discourse. It appears to be talking about a phenomenon and experience. It is not so much that there is no that can be observed in the ‘real’ world, but it ignores truth, but that any map of the world we use will be exceptions. Take the famous Azaria Chamberlain case incomplete. Take a road map, a topographical map, of the 1980s, for example. Lindy Chamberlain, Azaria’s and a weather map of the same area. All may be ‘true’ mother, was accused and convicted of murdering her depictions of the world they claim to represent, but baby by a Northern Territory court (a conviction that each only offers partial information about that world. was later quashed). She maintained throughout her You can’t use a topographical map to get directions defence that her baby daughter was taken by a dingo. to a friend’s house; nor can you use a weather map to However, because Lindy remained stoic throughout figure out your geographic location; and you certainly the trial, and therefore didn’t show the emotion can’t use a road map to tell you whether you need to expected by the media, the national press constructed wear warm clothes outside. Thus, the philosophical her as ‘abnormal,’ which certainly split public opinion postmodernist critique of ‘master narratives’ about her perceived guilt. Arguably, Lindy may have challenges us to approach knowledge as partial and been the victim of the ‘women are more emotional socio-historically constructed. This does not mean that than men’ discourse, a common-sense concept in all ‘representations’ and ‘interpretations’ are equal, or our society. Like all authoritative statements, this that anything goes,37 but it does mean acknowledging discourse shapes, directs, and coerces particular forms that our understanding of the world around us is of gendered behaviour; and where a person deviates always limited by the knowledge and communication from the expected behaviours, they are regarded with systems we use to make sense of it; and these systems suspicion. Such is the seductive power of discourse. are themselves by-products of historical human When philosophical postmodernists reject cultures. Thus, the idea of the ‘end of history’ is used ‘universalising and totalising discourses,’ what they ironically to remind us to remain sceptical of all claims are sceptical of are authoritative statements that that we can have some perfect ahistorical description attempt to cocoon diverse phenomena inside an of the world, and reaffirms that all the stories we tell all-encompassing narrative or model, that claims to about the world are to some degree conditioned by our unproblematically mirror a real world outside our sociohistorically situated ways of knowing. systems of representation. These grand narratives (or meta-narratives as they are sometimes called) present The Death of the Author (or Post- themselves as History (historical or ‘real’ descriptions Foundationalism) of the world), or a singular truth about the world, The second of the three ideas or motifs associated always and everywhere true, avoiding any attention with philosophical postmodernism can be described to historical or geographic variation, and all the time as a ‘post-foundationalist’ position, and is linked ignoring their historicity as a statement coming to ‘the death of the author.’ This position concerns from someone located within a specific disciplinary how one’s authority to make judgements about the or interpretive tradition and holding a particular world is established and maintained. A ‘foundation’ in sociocultural standpoint.34 This rejection of the appeal philosophy is a viewpoint or standpoint from which all to explain diverse phenomena via a totalising discourse judgements are made. Philosophical postmodernism or grand explanatory narrative is what philosophical involves a rejection of foundations or standpoints that postmodernists are thinking of when they proclaim claim to be true for all people in all places and times. ‘the end of History’ with a capital ‘H.’35 In other words, it rejects all metaphysical platforms based on claims that it is possible for a human being

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‘Pull‘The quote”main critics of postmodernism are often worried that its view implies moral relativism in which anything goes. This is a caricature of postmodern thought.’

Placeto view text the here world from outside their human culture Taking a post-foundational orientation means and history. Friedrich Nietzsche is sometimes accepting no authoritative meaning can be anchored identified as an inspiration for postmodern thought. in a text outside the text’s establishment of an Like Nietzsche,38 philosophical postmodernists author’s authority to speak. Likewise, there is no reject claims that there can be a set of principles or truth or meaning that can derive from a text that does values that are beyond human invention. Schools not in part derive its construction from reference of philosophy, social theory, or religious belief that to other texts; and involve some interpretation assume a set of values that have not developed (or re-authoring) by the reader. Thus, each idea historically, and/or are believed to be universally true attached to ‘the death of the author’ is underpinned and applicable, are considered forms of metaphysics by the notion that not only are communication and by philosophical postmodernists, requiring a position interpretation historical acts, but the authority they of judgement that has its foundations outside the command is also sociohistorically determined, since historical world. All such metaphysical positions are there can be no absolute foundation or metaphysical treated sceptically in philosophical postmodernist platform outside history or discourse from which to thought. Rejecting all metaphysical platforms, the cast authoritative statements. philosophical postmodernist argues that an author’s authority to speak does not come from a divine source, The End of Man (or Post-Essentialism) and thus must be achieved through historical, political The third orientation shared by philosophical or rhetorical means. Authority is understood to be postmodernists is a ‘post-essentialist’ position. The achieved through precise and complex rhetorical post-essentialist position is an expression of ‘the end procedures, and may be established through crafting of man’ motif (sometimes referred to as ‘the death of text that recycles, repeats, and recombines discourses the subject’42). Here philosophical postmodernism already in circulation.39 The politician, for example, borrows from feminism, rejecting the privileged may attempt to give authority to their attack on status of the singular, white, masculine subject. This a political opponent by rehearsing or repeating subject is made the norm against which we are all discourses that are already in circulation that place judged; and, of course, if we are not a white masculine their opponent in an unfavourable light. subject ourselves, we are often found wanting. This disembodied transcendental hero of the European Coined by the French cultural theorist Roland Barthes Enlightenment masquerades as ahistorical, asexual, in 1968,40 ‘the death of the author’ concept was used to acultural and classless, all the while being a projection signal that after the author of the text has put their pen of white, masculine, middle-class subjectivity. In other down and passed their text into the hands of a reader, words, when we think of what it means to be human, the reader inevitably interprets (or re-authors) the the philosophical postmodernist suspects that we text for himself or herself, furnishing it with meanings unconsciously conjure up a white, masculine subject.43 derived from their unique life experiences and historically- and culturally-shaped reading positions. In place of this white, masculine ideal (or Thus, an author has little control over how their work transcendental) subject, philosophical postmodernists will be read. Jacques Derrida makes a parallel argument propose a fluid, historical self.44 This historically- about authors themselves when he acknowledges constructed self can be understood only across that their dependency on the conventions of language categories. Philosophical postmodernists cautiously makes it necessary for one text to always refer to, or approach standpoint theories that define human draw from, other texts to make sense.41 This results subjects by their class, race, ethnicity, or gender, as in each text having a series of interdependent or they frequently derive from a form of essentialism that intertextual relationships with other texts. It leads to defines the subject in rigid categories. For example, a the understanding that an author can never be said statement such as ‘men are stronger than women’ may to be the sole creative agent behind the meanings in be true of many men, but there are certain to be some a text, since that text is reliant on other texts for its men weaker than some women. The same problem existence. Thus, the author is never considered, from arises when Australian authorities begin to talk about a philosophical postmodernist point of view, to be the Indigenous people as a singular cultural group, eliding sole giver of meaning to a text, and readers remain differences among the many linguistic groups that unable to recover any ‘original’ meaning of a text, since make up the Aboriginal community as it is understood their interpretation of the text is always the result of a today. Further, this problem is compounded unique reading position. when people can be in more than one category simultaneously as we find with a once-married and

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‘To do this well requires that we expose students to a variety of secondary sources, not just the primary sources prized in many history classes.’

now divorced gay white woman.45 The assigning several things become important. Firstly, philosophical of essential characteristics to specific categories, postmodernism would suggest that we must accept and the placing of people in those categories, is that all the historical narratives we encounter are thus considered problematic by philosophical coloured by their sociohistorical circumstances, postmodernists. One of their main concerns is even highly ‘empirical’ histories, since they too that such categories may operate as a means by are determined by what historical questions are, which individuals may be ‘interpellated,’46 literally or are not asked; what evidence is collected, or is hailed or called upon to behave or be understood in ignored (functions at least partially determined by particular ways by the categories they are inscribed which historiographic tradition the historian finds within. Divergence from a categorical norm is often themselves situated within).48 This would suggest that understood as a deficiency of the individual, rather systematic induction into historiography becomes than a problem of the category. What is rejected important, because historiography is how we come by philosophical postmodernism through its post- to understand the history of the various historical essentialist position is not using categories altogether representations we encounter.49 If we take on a – though one would always remain suspicious of their historiographic approach to teaching history, we limitations – but a universal unchanging human nature. need to understand that historical representation Philosophical postmodernists hold the view that emerges from within particular historiographic human subjectivity is a fluid process in which a person traditions (such as Feminism, Marxism, Social may fall inside and outside various categories, and may History, Intellectual History, Cultural History, etc.), be contradictory from one moment to the next. Such a and hence is marked ‘historically’ by the biases of position involves a rejection of the idea that there is, or those methodological traditions. Understanding can ever be, a universal human subject divorced from the historiographic frame within which a historical the shaping effects of history, culture and society. narrative has been constructed becomes the first step towards understanding the historian’s value-laden Philosophical Postmodernism, the assumptions; disposition towards particular forms of Historiographic Gaze, and History Teaching interpretation; and concern with different forms of The three ideas associated with philosophical evidence. Thus, it is not enough to determine whether postmodernism outlined above demonstrate that a given explanation fits the facts, but to consider what philosophical postmodernist thought adopts a questions the historian has decided to investigate; radically historicist way of viewing the world. For what approach they have taken to selecting the the philosophical postmodernist, ‘reality’ is never evidence; and how they have chosen to represent their known outside our sociohistorically constituted findings. Different traditions of historical scholarship, systems of knowing. Representations are thought to faced with investigating the same historical events, construct the way we view reality rather than simply will have different answers to these questions. These mirroring it. Authority is understood to be historically, answers are likely to result in different plausible politically, and rhetorically constructed. Human interpretations (remember the example of the subjects are understood to be historical beings, shaped road map, topographical map, and weather map by the circumstances in which they have lived, and of the same area). To do this well requires that we resisting over-determined categorisations. While expose students to a variety of secondary sources, certain aspects of cultural postmodernism may be not just the primary sources prized in many history cause for caution, philosophical postmodernism classes. It means treating these secondary sources offers historians a form of panoptical historicism, in as interpretations that demand interrogation in the which far from demolishing history, the philosophical same way we would interrogate primary sources. This postmodernist extends the gaze of the historian so includes understanding even school history textbooks, nothing escapes it. Not even themselves. If one accepts or historical films and documentaries, are secondary and adopts such a position, then this has particular interpretations that should be approached with the implications for history teaching. Let me conclude full arsenal of our critical faculties and historical then, by considering what all this might mean for inquiry skills. Rather than ‘background noise’ in the history educators. postmodern history classroom, these various historical media become important as interpretations. It has frequently been assumed that postmodernism would have little to say to the teaching and learning of What also becomes important if we take the historicist history.47 However, if philosophical postmodernism vision of postmodern theory seriously, is that we must is taken seriously as a historicist philosophy, then recognise how our acts of reading and interpretation

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are prejudiced by the methodological biases of the (Endnotes) historiographic traditions we have been initiated into; 1 Tony Taylor, & Carmel Young. Making History: A Guide for the our sociohistorically situated experiences; and the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools (Carlton South, VIC: Curriculum Corporation: 2013), 10. various historical sense-making methods we have accumulated. Certainly some scholars may want to 2 Tony Taylor, ‘Where Pyne and the neocons went wrong,’ consider how historically-determined our modes Sydney Morning Herald, 16 January 2014, 18. of thought are, and I accept that this is something 3 Ibid. that should be treated carefully and cautiously. 4 Grattan, M., & Rood, D. ‘PM attacks teaching of “dumb” However, the main critics of postmodernism are English; Opening a new campaign in the culture wars, often worried that its view implies moral relativism Howard levels a broadside at postmodernism - and takes (in which anything goes). This is something of a return fire,’ The Age, 21 April 2006. caricature of postmodern thought. Rather than placing 5 Luke Slattery. ‘This Little Pig Goes Postmodernist,’ Weekend the teacher and their students in a moral vacuum, Australian, 23 July 2005, 1. understanding philosophical postmodernism as a 6 Kevin Donnelly, ‘Counter Islamism with commitment to historicist philosophy means locating all views in their core values,’ The Australian, 17 September 2012, 12. sociohistorical contexts; understanding how our views 7 Justine Ferrari, ‘Truth be Known, Postmodernism is History,’ have been sociohistorically shaped; and making moral Weekend Australian, 27 May 2006, 9. judgements that recognise there is no outside history 8 Among very few exceptions are: Avner Segall, Elizabeth E. for any of us. Practically speaking, this could involve Heilman, and C. H. Cherryholmes, eds., Social Studies – the a strong emphasis on values clarification tasks that Next Generation: Re-Searching in the Postmodern (New York: encourage students to understand their views, and Peter Lang, 2006); and Peter Seixas, ‘Schweigen! Die Kinder! how they may differ from both people in the past, and Or Does Postmodern History Have a Place in the Schools?,’ historians writing about that past. There is little new in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and International Perspectives, ed. Peter N. Stearns, Peter Seixas, in such an approach for the history educator, except and Sam Wineburg (New York: New York University Press, awareness that the purpose of such activities is to 2000). reveal that our thinking is strongly imprinted by our 9 Keith Windschuttle, The Killing of History: How Literary histories. Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past (New York: Conclusion The Free Press, 1996). 10 Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History (London: Granta In this paper, I have tried to demonstrate that Books, 1997). historians or history educators should not summarily dismiss postmodernism. I have argued that the 11 Deborah E. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Memory and Truth (New York: Plume, 1994). cultural conditions under which we live in post- industrial societies may have led to various forms 12 Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994). of historical dislocation, but that these forms of historical disorientation may have been the impetus 13 Donald M. MacRaild and Avram Taylor, Social Theory and for the strong cultural turn towards history that Social History, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). we are experiencing, in the genealogical research 14 Michael S. Roth, ‘Introduction,’ in The Ironist’s Cage: Memory, explosion, historical fiction boom, and even in Trauma, and the Construction of History, ed. Michael S. Roth the recycling of the past that can be observed in (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). steampunk’s popularity. I have also argued that the 15 C. Behan McCullagh, The Logic of History: Putting three key motifs of postmodernism – the end of Postmodernism in Perspective (London: Routledge, 2004). history (post-universalism), the death of the author 16 Perez Zagorin, ‘Rejoinder to a Postmodernist,’ History and (post-foundationalism), and the death of the subject Theory 39 (2000). (post-essentialism) – can be read as offering a strongly 17 Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and historicist view of human subjectivity, that amounts Hermeneutics in Post-Modern Culture, trans. John R. to extending the gaze of the historian so that nothing Snyder (New York: Polity Press, 1991); Fredric Jameson. escapes it, not even themselves. Understood in this Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. way, postmodernism does not sound the death knell (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991); and Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, of history, but asks us to understand ourselves as trans. G Bennington and B Massumi (Minneapolis: historical beings for whom there is no outside of University of Minnesota, 1979). history. 18 See for example: Ernst Breisach, On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Lawrence Cahoone, ‘Introduction,’ in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, ed. Lawrence Cahoone (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996); N K Denzin, ‘Postmodernism and Deconstructionism,’ in Postmodernism and Social Inquiry, ed. D R Dickens and F Andrea (New York: The Guildford Press, 1994). 19 Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (London: Verso Books, 2000).

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“Pull20 Gianni quote” Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and 36 Steinar Kvale, ‘Postmodern Psychology: A Contradiction in Hermeneutics in Post-Modern Culture, trans. Jon R Snyder Terms?,’ in Psychology and Postmodernism, ed. Steinar Kvale (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 10. (London: SAGE Publications, 1992). 21 C Barry Chabot, ‘The Problem of the Postmodern,’ New 37 Chantal Mouffe, ‘Radical Democracy: Modern or Literary History 20, no. 1 (1988). Postmodern?,’ in Universal Abandon: The Politics of Postmodernism, ed. Chantal Mouffe (Minneapolis: University 22 Scott Lash and John Urry, The End of Organized Capitalism of Minnesota Press, 1988). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 38 Fredrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce 23 Arthur C. Danto. After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, the Pale of History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1887/1967). Place1997). text here 39 Michel Foucault, ‘What is an Author?,’ in Language, Counter- 24 Martin L Davies, Historics: Why History Dominates Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, ed. Donald F Contemporary Society (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006). Bouchard (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969/1977). 25 Anyone interested in the Goth and Science Fiction See also his The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: influenced Steampunk culture need only do an Amazon Pantheon Books, 1972). search to see the explosion in Steampunk-inspired literature 40 Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author,’ in Image-Music- in the last few years; and a quick visit to steampunkmusic. Text, ed. Roland Barthes (London: Fontana, 1968/1977). com will reveal the plethora of contemporary bands claiming allegiance to the retro-futurist aesthetic that defines the 41 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: John Hopkins Steampunk culture. University Press, 1976). 26 I am using the term ‘historicism’ loosely in this paper, to 42 Agnes Heller, ‘Death of the Subject?,’ in Constructions of the refer to a mode of thought that places importance upon Self, ed. G Levine (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, history and historical interpretation. I am not using it in the 1992). teleological sense rejected by Karl Popper, The Poverty of 43 The critique that IQ tests are culturally biased towards Historicism (London: Ark Paperbacks, 1957/1986). Popper’s the white middle classes as an explanation of why Black critique of Hegelian dialectical historicism is clearly shared Africans have historically scored lower on such measures, by postmodernists. comes to mind here as a practical example of the way the 27 Willie Thompson, Postmodernism and History (London: invisibility of the norm comes into effect, judging everyone Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 128. Common concerns can who is different to the norm as deficient or deviant. This is also be found in Alex Callinicos. Against Postmodernism a complicated problem in IQ testing, but see for example, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1989). Stephen F Cronshaw et al., ‘Case for Non-Biased Intelligence Testing against Black Africans Has Not Been Made: A 28 Michael A. Peters and Nicholas C. Burbules, Poststructuralism Comment on Rushton, Skuy, and Bons (2004),’ International and Educational Research (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, Journal of Selection and Assessment 14, no. 3 (2006). 2004). 44 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity 29 Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 27. Press, 2000). 30 Alicia de Alba et al., Curriculum in the Postmodern Condition 45 A parallel argument, explored from the point of view of the (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 128. female, Indian academic, is provided in: Gayatri Chakravorty 31 See the debate between Derrida and Foucault in: Jacques Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?,’ in Marxism and the Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (New York: Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978/1993); Michel Foucault, ‘My Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988). Body, This Paper, This Fire,’ in Essential Works of Foucault 46 Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses 1954-1984, ed. Geoff Bennington (London: Penguin Books, (Notes Towards an Investigation),’ in Lenin and Philosophy 1972/1994). See also Foucault’s ironic response to an and Other Essays, ed. L Althusser (New York: Monthly Review interviewer in: ‘Structuralism and Post-Structuralism,’ in Press, 1971). Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, ed. James D. Faubion (London: Penguin Books, 1983/1994). 47 Michele Lonsdale, ‘Postmodernism and the Study of History’ (thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements 32 This argument has been made elsewhere in the following for the degree of Master of Education, La Trobe University, texts: Robert J. Parkes, What Is Poststructuralism?, (Mayfield: 1991). Academic Bytes, 2012); Robert J. Parkes, Jennifer M. Gore, and Wendy A. Elsworth, ‘After Poststructuralism: Rethinking 48 A similar argument is put forward by: Avner Segall, ‘What’s the Discourse of Social Justice Pedagogy,’ in Social Justice the Purpose of Teaching a Discipline, Anyway?,’ in Social Pedagogy Across the Curriculum: The Practice of Freedom, ed. Studies, ed. Avner Segall, Elizabeth E Heilman, and C H T Chapman and N Hobbel (New York: Routledge, 2010); Cherryholmes. Robert J Parkes, ‘The Crisis in Pedagogy,’ in Conference 49 For further discussion of the place of historiography in Proceedings International Network of Philosophers of Education, history teaching, see the arguments in: Robert J Parkes, 7th Biennial Conference, ed. M O’Loughlin (Sydney, Australia: ‘Teaching History as Historiography: Engaging Narrative INPE and The Faculty of Education, University of Sydney, Diversity in the Curriculum,’ International Journal of 2000). Historical Learning, Teaching and Research 8, no. 2 (2009). 33 For an excellent genealogy of the concept of discourse, as K Yilmaz, ‘Introducing the “Linguistic Turn” to History used in contemporary theory, see: R. K. Sawyer, ‘A Discourse Education,’ International Education Journal 8, no. 1 (2007); on Discourse: An Archaeological History of an Intellectual ‘Social Studies Teachers’ Conceptions of History: Calling on Concept,’ Cultural Studies 16, no. 3 (2002). Historiography,’ The Journal of Educational Research 101, no. 3 (2008). 34 Here I am borrowing a concept from: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G Marshall, Second Revised ed. (New York: Continuum, 1999). 35 Jenkins, Why History?: Ethics and Postmodernity.

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