Page 60 - Introducing Cultural Studies
P. 60
Hardly surprising,
then, that cultural
studies in the US
lost many of its
Marxist
assumptions - not
least because
Marxism came
under severe
attack from the
postmodernists.
The French
philosopher Jean-
Francois Lyotard
(b. 1924)
introduced the
essential
postmodern idea
of "incredulity
towards Grand
Narratives" in his
seminal book The
Postmodern
Condition (1979).
The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the
Eastern "bloc" countries in 1989, with the consequent
discrediting of socialism, further distanced American cultural
studies from critical Marxism.
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