SOURCE: "Pluralism in Postmodern Perspective," in ThePostmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory andCulture, Ohio State University Press, 1987, pp. 167-90.

In the following essay, which was first published in 1986, Hassan discusses the historical aspects of postmodernism, concluding that the postmodern approach is the most appropriate to depict the wide-ranging aspects of human life in the twentieth-century.

I

Postmodernism once more—that breach has begun to yawn! I return to it by way of pluralism, which itself has become the irritable condition of postmodern discourse, consuming many pages of both critical and uncritical inquiry. Why? Why pluralism now? This question recalls another that Kant raised two centuries ago—"Was heisst Aufklärung?"—meaning, "Who are we now?" The answer was a signal meditation on historical presence, as Michel Foucault saw.¹ But to meditate on that topic today—and this is my central claim—is really to inquire "Was...