The term postmodern is used rather loosely to refer to a number of theoretical approaches developed since the late 1960s. The more precise, less inclusive term post-structuralism is generally used to refer to a quintet of French theorists whose major influence on AS occurs in the 80s -- Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Roland Barthes. If structuralism relies upon the logic of language, post-structuralism reveals rhetoric as the subversive, poetic sub-conscious of that logic. These writers are post-structuralist in the sense that they demonstrate the dependence of all structures on that which they try to eliminate from their systems. Divergent from one another in many respects, these writers all have in common an attempt to uncover the unquestioned metaphors that undergird social and disciplinary norms, particularly as manifested in philosophy (Derrida), historical writing and the professions (Foucault), psychoanalysis (Lacan), and literary studies (Kristeva and Barthes). All to one degree or another cross disciplinary boundaries, however, and all use variants of rhetorical analysis to reveal the constructed nature of such taken-for-granted objects and concepts as "humanity," "history," "the body," "the self," or "experience," and the co-dependence of such apparent oppositions as "power/resistance," or "masculine/feminine." Rather than attempt to list all the important works by these prolific writers, I cite here only collections that can be used as introductions to their larger bodies of work, followed by a few American applications of their ideas.