Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

11
Postmodernity: Impact and Implications
Chapter I
Historic Roots of Postmodernity
Premodernity
Postmodernity is best and perhaps only understood, when placed in historical context.
It is, therefore, necessary that this consideration of postmodernity begin by establishing
the larger historical context, since there is no way to [correctly] understand what the
postmodern cultural wave is, unless one understands what it is not. Postmodernity is in
essence -- anti-modernity.
Historical periodisation is an always-challenging task, especially at transitional points.
For our purposes, we will assume the period demarcations supplied by the confluence of
several [Western] encyclopaedic sources, which are generally these: the prehistoric
period, history prior to 3500 BC; the ancient and classical periods, 3500 BC-500 AD; the
postclassical period, 500–1500; the early modern Period, 1500–1800; the Modern Period,
1789–1914; the world war and interwar period, 1914-1945; and the contemporary period
after 1945, with the end of World War II. Premodernity is now generally considered the
Western cultural period which began around 500 AD and lasted to around 1400 AD,
when moveable type and the printing press were invented.
Also helpful are the historical demarcations provided by pre-eminent historian Will
Durant, who identifies the early Renaissance period as 1300-1576, which is particularly
focused on the Italian Renaissance. The French and English Renaissance periods are
generally 1643-1715, which marks the substantive European cultural transition from
superstition to scholarship, as Durant places it (Durant, 1963:481f). He also identifies the
Age of Reason as 1558-1648, and the Enlightenment as beginning with the Frenchman
Rousseau in 1712, to about 1789 with the climax of the French Revolution. There are
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa