Similarities and Differences Between Critical and Interpretive Traditions

Similarities and Differences between Critical Traditions and the Traditions of the “Post” “Post”-traditions have developed as reactions and reflections of dramatically altered material and ideological conditions that have taken place over the last fifty years across the globe, such as the collapse of communism, the official demise of colonialism, the renewal of aggressive capitalism, the incredible speed of technological change and the terrifying possibilities of scientific inventions. All these changes created a world in which the old certainties about truth, justice and the good life no longer exist. That makes the “post”-traditions (especially, postmodernism and poststructuralism) skeptical of grand (or meta-) narratives as Marxism. The prefix “post” signifies that these newest traditions emerged after modernity, structuralism or colonialism and also as a protest, negation of and rupture with past traditions. Let us look upon the three major “post”-traditions '' postmodernism, poststructuralism and postcolonialism and compare them with the critical traditions. Postmodernism Working in the postmodern traditions is completely different from working in the critical traditions. Postmodernists call for a radically different orientation toward phenomena such as data, methods and analysis and for a radical reformulation of the nature of research and its representation, offer us a vocabulary and perspective that is refreshingly different from interpretive and critical traditions. They invite scholars to become more playful and ironic conducting a research and favor the method of blending multiple genres (historical, literary, psychological) in one’s data collection and presentation. This method of blending or fusion is often compared with the artistic pastiche (or collage). It implies the plurality of voices, striving to create a cacophonic rather than singular effect and reconstructing noise as voice. These parallels with art and music show postmodernism breaking