In What Sense Might We Be Living Through ‘Posthistorical’ Times?

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Cultural Studies - Basics and Definitions, grade: 80, University of Leeds (Trinity & All Saints College), course: Cultural Analysis, 41 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: At the beginning of the new century the perception that we are living at a time of deep change, in practise as well as in thought, is widespread. In recent years the social and human sciences proclaimed that we are entering a time of ‘endism’, a period of post-capitalism, post-industrialism, post-socialism and above all of post-modernism and post-modernity. The number of different ‘post’ labels suggests a deep uncertainty about the present as well as the future and agreement between the different theories exist only in the view that ‘things are not what they used to be’. In the following, this paper aims to examine in what sense we might be living through posthistorical times.