“This is America,” 2018
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Why?
There are a number of individuals who have postulated that we have already moved past Postmodernism into a new era that can be called Post-Postmodernism, Postmodernism 2.0, Metamodernism, Altermodernism, Transmodernism, and other names. They point to the internet, new globalism, a rise in sincerity, and a return to grand narratives as some of the earmarks of this change. Not that to be a cultural producer in this age means that you must subscribe to these historical and theoretical framings, but it is useful to see how people are attempting to frame current practices.
Required
Supplementary Readings
- Post-Postmodernism
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The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond, Philosophy Now
“Pseudo-modernism also encompasses contemporary news programmes, whose content increasingly consists of emails or text messages sent in commenting on the news items. The terminology of ‘interactivity’ is equally inappropriate here, since there is no exchange: instead, the viewer or listener enters—writes a segment of the programme—then departs, returning to a passive role. Pseudo-modernism also includes computer games, which similarly place the individual in a context where they invent the cultural content, within pre-delineated limits. The content of each individual act of playing the game varies according to the particular player.”Post-Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Just-in-Time Capitalism
“Post-Postmodernism begins with a simple premise: we no longer live in the world of ‘postmodernism,’ famously dubbed 'the cultural logic of late capitalism’ by Fredric Jameson in 1984. Far from charting any simple move 'beyond’ postmodernism since the 1980s, though, this book argues that we’ve experienced an intensification of postmodern capitalism over the past decades, an increasing saturation of the economic sphere into formerly independent segments of everyday cultural life. If 'fragmentation’ was the preferred watchword of postmodern America, 'intensification’ is the dominant cultural logic of our contemporary era. Post-Postmodernism surveys a wide variety of cultural texts in pursuing its analyses—everything from the classic rock of Black Sabbath to the post-Marxism of Antonio Negri, from considerations of the corporate university to the fare at the cineplex, from reading experimental literature to gambling in Las Vegas, from Badiou to the undergraduate classroom.”
- Metamodernism
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Notes on Metamodernism, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture
“The postmodern years of plenty, pastiche, and parataxis are over. In fact, if we are to believe the many academics, critics, and pundits whose books and essays describe the decline and demise of the postmodern, they have been over for quite a while now. But if these commentators agree the postmodern condition has been abandoned, they appear less in accord as to what to make of the state it has been abandoned for. In this essay, we will outline the contours of this discourse by looking at recent developments in architecture, art, and film. We will call this discourse, oscillating between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, metamodernism. We argue that the metamodern is most clearly, yet not exclusively, expressed by the neoromantic turn of late associated with the architecture of Herzog & de Meuron, the installations of Bas Jan Ader, the collages of David Thorpe, the paintings of Kaye Donachie, and the films of Michel Gondry.”
Misunderstandings and Clarifications: Notes on ‘Notes on Metamodernism’, Notes on Metamodernism
“The reason for sharing all this with you, we guess, is that over the past few years there have been some misinterpretations about what we may have intended in those first notes on metamodernism. A number of the initial 6.000 words have been taken out of context or even misrepresented to suggest we said things that we most certainly did not say. To be sure, we do not have a problem with people criticizing our argument – indeed, we ourselves see how flawed it is, how misguided in some of its assessments and incomplete (and perhaps too hasty) in its theorization; nor, obviously, do we mind people using our essay as an explicit stub or implicit inspiration to develop their own, undoubtedly much more advanced theses. We also understand that once your words are jotted down, they are no longer yours, that they can be picked up by others. But it is important to us that our research is criticized or praised for what it does actually conclude, not for what it does not.”
The Metamodern Condition: A Report on ‘The Dutch School’ of Metamodernism
“In late November 2017, Robin van den Akker, Alison Gibbons, Timotheus Vermeulen published Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect and Depth After Postmodernism, an edited volume of critical debate about metamodern movements in aesthetics, arts, and culture. In it, they are able to update and refine the project they officially began in 2010. This was a much awaited sourcebook for the study of metamodernism, and represents a milestone for this intellectual movement. It is potent analysis of what it covers, but also leaves open a vast field for the development of metamodern theory and its transformative power.”
Whose (Meta)modernism?: Metamodernism, Race, and the Politics of Failure, Journal of Modern Literature
“Contemporary American poetry by black women writers challenges a theory of metamodernism that would identify the acceptance of “failure” as a central attitude of metamodern art and literature. Metadmodernist poetry by Harryette Mullen and Evie Shockley explicitly engages the politics of form that characterizes avant-garde modernism; rather than figure political and aesthetic failure as inevitable or even desirable, these writers revitalize formal techniques of modernism (often modernism's avant-garde strands in particular) in order to offer critiques of state-sanctioned racism and heterosexism. These critiques do not redeem failure by aestheticizing it but rather lay bare the ways in which American society has failed people of color. The varying degrees of attention afforded to such contemporary political concerns by theories of metamodernism prompts the question ‘Whose metamodernism are we theorizing?’”
What is Metamodernism?
“Philosophers Robin van den Akker and Timotheus Vermeulen talk about their concept of metamodernism, the waning of irony and the new forms of sincerity emerging in 21st century culture.”
- Altermodernism
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Altermodern: Manifesto, Tate.org
“A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture”
Altermodern: A Conversation with Nicolas Bourriaud, Art in America
“BR: What is the ‘Altermodern?’
NB: First, it is an attempt to reexamine our present, by replacing one periodizing tool with another. After 30 years into the ‘aftershock’ of modernism and its mourning, then into the necessary post-colonial reexamination of our cultural frames, ‘Altermodern’ is a word that intends to define the specific modernity according to the specific context we live in—globalization, and its economic, political and cultural conditions. The use of the prefix “alter” means that the historical period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end, and alludes to the local struggles against standardization. The core of this new modernity is, according to me, the experience of wandering—in time, space and mediums. But the definition is far from being complete.”
Response Questions
Remember to cite specific instances from the text to support your views.
- Based on the readings, do you think that we are in a Modern, Postmodern, or Post-Postmodern era and why?
- Which ideas addressed in the readings are the most intriguing to you and why?
- Where have you seen Metamodernist methods at play in larger culture? Give clear examples and explain how they relate to the readings.