If it is true that historical research often reflects the preoccupations of the present, then perhaps one reason for the current interest in the topic of historical periodization is the fact that for the past two decades Western intellectuals have been obsessed with periodizing our own epoch. In this context, the concept of postmodernism has come to special prominence as the label by which not only scholars, but journalists and even advertisers, have come to identify themselves. It is a concept under which the disparate tendencies of contemporary life — from gender-bending to multinational capitalism — are subsumed, and it is meant to stand in contrast to other periodizing, colligatory concepts like modernism and the Enlightenment. The purpose of this paper is to explore several of the problems raised by attempts to periodize the present moment in terms of the notion of postmodernism, and, in the end, the author goes as far as to suggest that the very endeavor rests on a fallacy.
