Postmodernism is a term used to refer to a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the world. Still, there is disagreement among experts about its more precise meaning even within narrow contexts.
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical ideas regarding culture, identity, history, or language that were developed during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like différance, repetition, trace, and hyperreality to subvert "grand narratives", univocity of being, and epistemic certainty. Postmodern philosophy questions the importance of power relationships, personalization, and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. Many postmodernists appear to deny that an objective reality exists, and appear to deny that there are objective moral values.
Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of power. Although post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Accordingly, post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media within pre-established, socially constructed structures.
Paul-Michel Foucault was a French historian of ideas and philosopher who was also an author, literary critic, political activist, and teacher. Foucault's theories primarily addressed the relationships between power versus knowledge and liberty, and he analyzed how they are used as a form of social control through multiple institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels and sought to critique authority without limits on himself. His thought has influenced academics within a large number of contrasting areas of study, with this especially including those working in anthropology, communication studies, criminology, cultural studies, feminism, literary theory, psychology, and sociology. His efforts against homophobia and racial prejudice as well as against other ideological doctrines have also shaped research into critical theory and Marxism–Leninism alongside other topics.
The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought, the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deals with broad fundamental questions about the extent and limits of social influences on individuals' lives and the social-cultural basis of our knowledge about the world. The sociology of knowledge has a subclass and a complement. Its subclass is sociology of scientific knowledge. Its complement is the sociology of ignorance.
Postmodernity is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the 1980s or early 1990s – and that it was replaced by postmodernity, and still others would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by postmodernity. The idea of the postmodern condition is sometimes characterized as a culture stripped of its capacity to function in any linear or autonomous state like regressive isolationism, as opposed to the progressive mind state of modernism.
Social constructionism is a term used in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory. The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this theoretical framework suggests various facets of social reality—such as concepts, beliefs, norms, and values—are formed through continuous interactions and negotiations among society's members, rather than empirical observation of physical reality. The theory of social constructionism posits that much of what individuals perceive as 'reality' is actually the outcome of a dynamic process of construction influenced by social conventions and structures.
In social theory, a metanarrative is an overarching narrative about smaller historical narratives, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a master idea. The term was popularized by the writing of French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard in 1979. Metanarrative is considered a foundational concept of postmodernism.
The History of Sexuality is a four-volume study of sexuality in the Western world by the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, in which the author examines the emergence of "sexuality" as a discursive object and separate sphere of life and argues that the notion that every individual has a sexuality is a relatively recent development in Western societies. The first volume, The Will to Knowledge, was first published in 1976; an English translation appeared in 1978. The Use of Pleasure, and The Care of the Self, were published in 1984. The fourth volume, Confessions of the Flesh, was published posthumously in 2018.
Postmodern feminism is a mix of postmodernism and French feminism that rejects a universal female subject. The goal of postmodern feminism is to destabilize the patriarchal norms entrenched in society that have led to gender inequality. Postmodern feminists seek to accomplish this goal through opposing essentialism, philosophy, and universal truths in favor of embracing the differences that exist amongst women in order to demonstrate that not all women are the same. These ideologies are rejected by postmodern feminists because they believe if a universal truth is applied to all women of society, it minimizes individual experience, hence they warn women to be aware of ideas displayed as the norm in society since it may stem from masculine notions of how women should be portrayed.
In social theory and philosophy, antihumanism or anti-humanism is a theory that is critical of traditional humanism, traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition. Central to antihumanism is the view that philosophical anthropology and its concepts of "human nature", "man" or "humanity" should be rejected as historically relative, ideological or metaphysical.
The Archaeology of Knowledge by Michel Foucault is a treatise about the methodology and historiography of the systems of thought (epistemes) and of knowledge which follow rules that operate beneath the consciousness of the subject individuals, and which define a conceptual system of possibility that determines the boundaries of language and thought used in a given time and domain. The archaeology of knowledge is the analytical method that Foucault used in Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1961), The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (1963), and The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966).
Interdiscourse is the implicit or explicit relations that a discourse has to other discourses. Interdiscursivity is the aspect of a discourse that relates it to other discourses. Norman Fairclough prefers the concept "orders of discourse". Interdiscursivity is often mostly an analytic concept, e.g. in Foucault and Fairclough. Interdiscursivity has close affinity to recontextualisation because interdiscourse often implies that elements are imported from another discourse.
In philosophy, genealogy is a historical technique in which one questions the commonly understood emergence of various philosophical and social beliefs by attempting to account for the scope, breadth, or totality of discourse, thus extending the possibility of analysis. Moreover, a genealogy often attempts to look beyond the discourse in question toward the conditions of their possibility. It has been developed as a continuation of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Genealogy is opposed to the Marxist use of ideology to explain the totality of historical discourse within the time period in question by focusing on a singular or dominant discourse (ideology).
Foucauldian discourse analysis is a form of discourse analysis, focusing on power relationships in society as expressed through language and practices, and based on the theories of Michel Foucault.
The "argumentative turn" refers to a group of different approaches in policy analysis and planning that emphasize the increased relevance of argumentation, language and presentation in policy making. Inspired by the "linguistic turn" in the field of humanities, it was developed as an alternative to the epistemological limitations of "neo-positivist" policy analysis and its underlying technocratic understanding of the decision-making process. The argumentative approach systematically integrates empirical and normative questions into a methodological whole oriented towards the analysis of policy deliberation. It is sensitive to the immediate and the many kinds of knowledge practices involved in each phase of the policy process, bringing attention to different forms of argumentation, persuasion and justification.
Feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis (FPDA) is a method of discourse analysis based on Chris Weedon's theories of feminist post-structuralism, and developed as a method of analysis by Judith Baxter in 2003. FPDA is based on a combination of feminism and post-structuralism. While it is still evolving as a methodology, FPDA has been used by a range of international scholars of gender and language to analyse texts such as: classroom discourse, teenage girls' conversation, and media representations of gender. FPDA is an approach to analysing the discourse of spoken interaction principally.
A critical theory is any approach to humanities and social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge or dismantle power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. Some hold it to be an ideology, others argue that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory, cultural studies, history, communication theory, philosophy, and feminist theory.
On the proposal of Jules Vuillemin, a chair in the department of Philosophy and History was created at the Collège de France to replace the late Jean Hyppolite. The title of the new chair was The history of systems of thought and it was created on November 30, 1969. Vuillemin put forward Michel Foucault to the general assembly of professors and Foucault was duly elected on 12 April 1970. He was 44 years old, and at the time was relatively unknown beyond the borders of his native France. As required by this appointment, he held a series of public lectures from 1970 until his death in 1984. These lectures, in which he further advanced his work, were summarised from audio recordings and edited by Michel Senellart. They were subsequently translated into English and further edited by Graham Burchell and published posthumously by St Martin's Press.
Body theory is a sociological theory that analyses the human body as an ordered or "lived-in" entity, subject to the cultural and conceptual forces of a society. It is also described as a dynamic field that involves various conceptualizations and re-significations of the body as well as its formation or transformation that affect how bodies are constructed, perceived, evaluated, and experienced.
