Modernism, Postmodernism, and Social Theory: A Comparison of Althusser and Foucault

In this essay* I will inquire into the theoretical positions of two major figures in postwar French and European intellectual history, Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault, in light of current debates over the "crisis of modernism" and the much-heralded supersession of the latter by a still amorphous entity known as postmodernism. I will argue that Althusser's work and the structural Marxist school which derives