some plausible, some preposterous. Although the primary domain of postmodernism is at the university, specifically in the human sciences, neither are its origins narrowly academic, nor are its implications restricted to the academy. Once again, the word postmodern may be distinguished from postmodernism. Unlike the distinction between modernity and modernism, however, the contrast here is not between an era and an ideal. Rather, it is a matter of the smaller difference between a general state (the