Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-18-2015

Abstract

Whereas modernists constantly attempt to reduce the meanings of texts to an essential core or single truth postmodernists are antifoundationalists and antiessentialists According to postmodernists the meaning of a text is never grounded or stable and therefore one can always find multiple meanings or truths Thus one performs a postmodern flip by taking a segment of a text event or concept that apparently has been reduced to a static meaning or truth and suggesting the possible existence of another meaning or truth The postmodern flip then is completed by exploring how this new meaning or truth of the segment of the text event or concept might reorient ones understanding of the whole This Article begins by concentrating on judicial practice by describing the Teague rule against new rules in habeas corpus cases In a series of decisions the Supreme Court has focused on the issue of whether constitutional rules should apply retroactively in habeas cases These decisions conclude by severely restricting the scope of habeas corpus The Teague rule against new rules prohibits with two narrow exceptions federal habeas courts from announcing or applying new rules of constitutional law Hence a state prisoner can gain relief only by showing that the state courts ignored or misapplied an old rule of law Consequently the article proceeds by performing a postmodern deconstruction of the Teague rule against new rules It goes on to explore how the Courts judicial practice itself manifests postmodernism The article concludes with another postmodern flip This time postmodern insights are selfreflexively turned onto postmodernism itselfin particular onto postmodern legal scholarship

First Page

1046

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