ABSTRACT
The vexed subject of the past haunts postmodernism. It has frequently been observed that there is a paradoxical relationship between postmodern culture and history. On the one hand, postmodernism is often presented as the erasure of a sense of history, conceived of as a linear unfolding of a sequence of events. Much is made of the tendency in postmodern culture both towards pastiche, whereby cultural forms from the past are mixed and matched in an eclectic fashion, and the renunciation of Enlightenment metanarratives, driving us toward some future goal. 1 On the other hand, the term itself-postmodernism - suggests something which comes after modernism and which is, therefore, very clearly situated historically. As Steven Earnshaw comments, 'It is the case that postmodernism would rather not be "in history" if it can help it . . . [But ifl history is narrative, then the very word "postmodernism" cannot avoid being in history, and history in a very strong teleological sense' .2
