Mircea Eliade and Postmodernism

The term “postmodernism” and the cluster of ideas associated with it are both confused and criticized. A glance at Jean-Paul Sartre’s widely reprinted article of 1946, “Existentialism as a Humanism,” shows that precisely the same accusations currently leveled at postmodernism were once leveled at existentialism. These accusations, in both cases, arise more from superficial misunderstandings, “straw man” fallacies, and enthusiasm of epigones who have failed to grasp the full implications of their precursors. There is much of value to be made of the postmodern turn and I suggested, in Reconstructing Eliade , that Eliade might be a “precursor of postmodernism” (232). This suggestion elicited a vigorous rejection from Carl Olson (“Mircea Eliade, Postmodernism, and the Problematic Nature of Representational Thinking”). The following selection is my response to Olson and is the clearest statement of my argument.