ABSTRACT
The discussion of Modernism as a Western cultural movement, expressed in a number of tendencies in art and thought that are now perceived to be in decline or collapse, is widespread in general literary circles. It is, perhaps, dangerous for social anthropologists to intervene, but they have a genuine interest, if only because of the involvement in these developments of some of the theories popular in social anthropology in the last decade or so. At the same time, there has been a trajectory in social anthropology itself which needs a name and which I am prepared to relate to Modernism. This paper was originally conceived for a general intellectual audience, and I have delivered its theme to at least one such. I am preserving the somewhat broad-brush treatment, as I do not expect its argument to be other than provisional. I do, however, address some genuinely puzzling matters. 1
