ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the values and practices of Anglophone literary studies were transformed by key changes to Western political discourse in and around 1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall signaling a supposed “end of history,” the apparent triumph of liberal democracy across the globe, and cultural representation’s heightened priority as a site of political struggle. Anglophone intellectuals often express cynicism about liberalism’s supposed victory in 1989, yet this chapter shows how the pivotal concerns in literary studies at this time were all animated by a grounding investment in liberal pluralism, including the multiculturalism debates, the rise and fall of postmodernism as a key concept, and especially the accelerating emphasis on a politics of cultural recognition that privileges difference. After surveying forms of fundamentalist reaction against this cultural project, the chapter closes by insisting that critics must return to 1989 not simply to read its literature but also and more fundamentally to historicize the recent, rapid changes to our discipline.
