Introduction: Theory of Postmodernism

Abstract This article was written as an introduction to an anthology of postmodernism that includes texts by the leading Western thinkers such as Leslie Fiedler, Jürgen Habermas, Jean François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton, Ihab Hassan, and Andreas Huyssen. As English literature scholars, the authors acknowledge the necessity of postmodernism as a cultural theory that provides a framework for understanding the new cultural aspects of the consumer-oriented, multi-national capitalism of Korea. At the same time, they emphasize that Korea is in an exceptional political, national, historical situation as a divided country in a condition of truce.