Stanley Fish

Why Postmoderns Train—Not Educate—Activists

At the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, my article “Why Postmoderns Train—Not Educate—Activists.” Teasers: Who said this? We cannot escape our ethnocentric predicament. We must, in practice, privilege our own group. And this? You don’t want to build up your opponent’s arguments; you want to squelch them. This? Renounce all philosophical speculation and

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Stanley Fish in Explaining Postmodernism

“Deconstruction,” Stanley Fish confesses happily, “relieves me of the obligation to be right … and demands only that I be interesting.” For the implications of Fish’s quotation for postmodernism, see p. 11 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this dedicated page.

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How Randy Newman Solved Stanley Fish’s Credibility Problem

Stanley Fish, postmodern provocateur, gave a talk at Indiana University when I was a graduate student there in the late 1980s. He was then working on what would become There’s No Such Thing As Free Speech, And It’s a Good Thing, Too. Fish’s theme was social construction and oppression: We all are products of our

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“Postmodernism Unpeeled” discussion with David Thompson

David Thompson is a critic and commentator with strong interests in pop culture and postmodernism. His interview with me based on my book Explaining Postmodernism is now posted at his site. Previous interviews I’ve done on postmodernism’s themes and roots were published in Navigator and New Individualist magazines. The following scholarly reviews of the book

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Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to FoucaultScholargy Publishing, 2004. The following scholarly reviews have been published:Professor Gary Jason in LibertyProfessor Curtis Hancock in The Review of Metaphysics (and can be read online here)Professor Marcus Verhaegh in The Independent ReviewDr. David Gordon in The Mises ReviewProfessor Max Hocutt in The Journal of Ayn Rand

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