ABSTRACT
In most theories of postmodernism, the modern period is identified with industrial capitalism, although its successor is variably characterized as a postindustrial society or a new stage of capitalism. In academic fields such as feminist and African American studies, the move toward postmodernism largely involved an emphasis on the intragroup differences suppressed in radical feminism and black cultural nationalism. Some key features that are said to distinguish postmodern from modern black intellectual and cultural production are its quest for a politics of difference that eschews essentialist constructs of community, and a shift from print to vernacular media. The displacement of print by vernacular forms of representation is motivated by the desire to address a broad-based black community and entails claims about the authentic culture of African Americans. The contradictory nature of the burden of racial representation imposed on African American culture is perhaps most clearly apparent in the domain of print literature.
