History and Postmodernism

Abstract

The growth in popularity of postmodern critical theory in the field of Asian American Studies provokes mixed feelings in me as a historian (and it is from the viewpoint of a historian specializing in Asian American history that I speak in this essay). There is much that is positive in the development but much that troubles me at the same time. As an interdisciplinary field, Asian American Studies can only benefit from the insights and originality that postmodernism, and for that matter any theoretical and analytical approach from natural science, social science, or other humanistic area, encourages among practitioners in the field. In particular, postmodern theory (I acknowledge that many different ways of thinking can be called postmodern, but in this essay, postmodernism means the current analytical concentration, posited in an epistemology of radical philosophical skepticism, on discourse) has inspired innovative work in literary criticism, creative production, and cultural analysis. At the same time, it has also promoted in the historical field a heightened sensitivity to the problematic nature of evidence, to the limits of knowledge and of truth claims, to the imbedded silences and contradictions in any effort to recover human experience, to the responsibilities of authorial voice and power, and to the complexity and variety of human experience itself, alerting us to the dangers of essentialism and overgeneralization. These effects have been all to the good. One of the great strengths of postmodern theory is its critical power and, as such, it has furthered counterhegemonic efforts, which Marxists, ethnic studies specialists, and feminist scholars,