Has anyone seen the movie Awakenings? It is "based on a true story" about a doctor trying to cure catatonic patients. In one scene, Dr. Oliver Sachs proposes that the characteristic tremors of Parkinson's disease accelerated enough could freeze a patient's muscles causing a catatonic state. This notion came to mind when Anderson addresses the periodization of postmodernism.

Anderson's synthesis of postmodern theories and theorists repeatedly hints at the movement's ahistorical bent. He writes, "Historically modernism was essentially a post facto category, unifying after the event a wide variety of experimental forms and movements...By contrast, postermodernism was much closer to an ex ante notion, a conception germinated in advance of the artistic practices it came to depict." (93) I have noticed that many in modern academia, and perhaps some in the broader world (W), attempt to pre-emptively place the present day in its historical context. Perhaps an ever-accelerated process of historiography has led to this breach in the very notion of History.

P.S. My conclusion (inadvertently) alludes to some idealized former notion of History. Please ignore.