Metamodernist Fiction - Literary Manifestations of the Ongoing Cultural Shift

Published by Reblogs - Credits in Posts, November 22nd, 2023

Metamodernist Fiction: Literary Manifestations

of the Ongoing Cultural Shift

edited by Magdalena Sawa and Joanna Klara Teske

Recent years have witnessed an impressive expansion of the debate on metamodernism and its place in contemporary culture. This debate gained momentum after the publication of "Notes on Metamodernism" by Robin van den Akker and Timotheus Vermeulen in 2010. Notable publications on the topic include:

Irmtraud Huber’s Literature after Postmodernism: Reconstructive Fantasies (2014)
Supplanting the Postmodern: An Anthology of Writings on the Arts and Culture of the Early 21st Century (2015) edited by David Rudrum and Nicholas Stavris
Wolfgang Funk's The Literature of Reconstruction: Authentic Fiction in the New Millennium (2016)
Metamodernism. Historicity, Affect, and Depth After Postmodernism (2017) edited by Robin Van den Akker, Alison Gibbons, and Timotheus Vermeulen
New Directions in Philosophy and Literature (2019) edited by David Rudrum, Ridvan Askin, and Frieda Beckman
Josh Toth’s The Passing of Postmodernism (2010) and Truth and Metafiction (2020)

Much of the discussion on metamodernism takes place on websites, podcasts, and YouTube channels, which often host influential theoreticians of the movement. The diversity of interpretations is striking, with various authors presenting different construals of the phenomenon. At times, the same authors substantially modify their interpretations over the years.

Metamodernism extends beyond literature to visual arts, music, architecture, social life, and politics.

In English-language fiction, authors such as Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, Ali Smith, Elif Batuman, and Dave Eggers have been identified as having metamodernist tendencies. However, if metamodernism has replaced postmodernism as the dominant aesthetics, it is expected that the metamodernist convention will manifest in the works of many other authors who have not yet been identified as metamodernist.

The editors seek research papers that combine reflection on various models/conceptualizations of metamodernism with analyses of contemporary (21st century) English-language fiction. The resulting collection aims to contribute to our understanding of the ongoing change in our experience and conceptualization of ourselves and the world.

Submissions are welcome for analyses and interpretations of English-language 21st century novels and shorter fiction, considering their metamodernist character. The following issues are suggested for examination:

Moral considerations in metamodernist fiction
Spiritual experience in metamodernist fiction, the status of supernatural phenomena in metamodernist texts, metamodernism and postsecularism, metamodernism and rationality
The reconstructive work of the metamodernist reader
Metamodernist response to ecological crisis, the digitalization of social life, current political crises, metamodernist social commitment
Metamodernist search for life’s meaning
The shape of metamodernist fiction (its use of metafiction, irony, playful language, intertextuality etc.)
Metamodernist dialogue with postmodernism and pre-postmodern movements
The complex relationship between metamodernism and other contemporary artistic and cultural movements such as transmodernity, digimodernism, performatism, postsecularity
Metamodernist view on humans (self, individual, subjectivity) and human relations with each other and with non-human beings
Metamodernist focus on experience (as contrasted with abstract speculations)
Metamodernist self-reflexivity (how it differs from postmodern self-reflexivity)
Metamodernist sensibility – the sense of hope, optimism, enthusiasm, "as if" engagement, sincerity, authenticity

Please send questions and proposals (250-word abstracts) to magdalena.sawa@kul.pl and joanna.teske@kul.pl by March 1, 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by April 01, 2024. Final papers will be expected by September 31, 2024. The editors aim to publish the collection in a first-rate academic publishing house by the end of 2025.

Authors are requested to follow the MLA stylesheet (8th edition) and use British English spelling. Please attach a brief biographical note to your abstract.

Magdalena Sawa, Assistant Professor of Literary Studies

Joanna Klara Teske, Associate Professor of Literary Studies

Institute of Literary Studies

John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

Al. Racławickie 14

20-950 Lublin

Poland

updated:

Wednesday, November 15, 2023 - 2:26 pm

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Magdalena Sawa and Joanna Klara Teske

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