Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, Depth brings together many of the most influential voices in the scholarly and critical debate about post-postmodernism and twenty-first century aesthetics, arts and culture. By relating cutting-edge analyses of contemporary literature, the visual arts and film and television to recent social, technological and economic developments, the volume provides both a map and an itinerary of todays metamodern cultural landscape. As its organising principle, the book takes Fredric Jamesons canonical arguments about the waning of historicity, affect and depth in the postmodern culture of western capitalist societies in the twentieth century, and re-evaluates and reconceptualises these notions in a twenty-first century context. In doing so, it shows that the contemporary moment should be regarded as a transitional period from the postmodern and into the metamodern cultural moment.

Robin van den Akker is Lecturer in Continental Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University College Rotterdam.
Alison Gibbonsis Reader in Contemporary Stylistics at Sheffield Hallam University.
Timotheus Vermeulenis Associate Professor in Media, Culture and Society at the University of Oslo.

Acknowledgements

1. Periodising the 2000s, or, the emergence of metamodernism, Robin van den Akker and Timotheus Vermeulen

Section I: Historicity

2. Metamodern Historicity, Robin van den Akker

3. The metamodern, the quirky, and the challenge of categorization, James MacDowell

4. Toni Morrisons Beloved and the Rise of Historioplastic Metafiction, Josh Toth

5. Super-hybridity: Non-simultaneity, political power, and multipolar conflict, Jorg Heiser

6. The Cosmic Artisan: Mannerist Virtuosity and Contemporary Crafts, Sjoerd van Tuinen

Section II: Affect

7. Metamodern Affect, Alison Gibbons

8. Four Faces of Post-Irony, Lee Konstantinou

9. Radical Defenselessness: A new sense of self in the work of David Foster Wallace, Nicoline Timmer

10. Contemporary Autofiction and Affect, Alison Gibbons

11. The Joke that Wasnt funny anymore: Empathy in Contemporary Sitcoms, Gry Rustad and Kai Schwind

Section III: Depth

12. Metamodern Depth or Depthiness, Timotheus Vermeulen

13. Reconstructing Depth: Authentic Fiction and Responsibility, Irmtraud Huber and Wolfgang Funk

14. Between truth, sincerity and satire: Post-truth politics and the rhetoric of authenticity, Sam Browse

15. Notes on Performatist Photography: Experiencing beauty and transcendence after postmodernism, Raoul Eshelman

Epilogue

16. Thoughts on writing about art after postmodernism, James Elkins

References

Index

Contributor Information