ABSTRACT
At first glance, it might seem unlikely that either Foucault or Derrida would have much influence on the practice of history. Both of them argued vehemently against any research into origins, and both advanced methods of discourse analysis that required none of the usual forms of grounding in economics, society, or politics. All historians of culture must grapple with how to relate the cultural artifact - text, painting, or steam engine - with the other beliefs, knowledge systems, interests, and structures affecting the human agents who gave rise to it. Reactions to postmodernist theories within history have varied widely. Traditionalists reject the new forms of theory just as they rejected all previous forms of theory as unnecessary, even unhealthy, intrusions into the domain of history. Some academic feminists have found postmodernist theories congenial because such theories underline the contingency, the human-madeness, and hence the changeability of cultural norms and practices.
