What is Metamodernism and Why Bother? Meditations on Metamodernism as a Period Term and as a Mode
Alexandra E. Dumitrescu
Alexandra Dumitrescu’s essay describes the development of metamodernism in New Zealand and presents metamodernism as an interrogation of “modernist uprootedness or postmodern drifting.”
From Master(y) Narratives to Matter Narratives: Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods
Damien Gibson
In an attempt to re-materialize postmodernism, Damien Gibson provides, by drawing on material ecocriticism and on the concept of “narrative agency,” a critical posthumanist reading of Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods.
The Historical Status of Postmodernism Under Neoliberalism
Simon During
Simon During proposes to unravel the “layered” history of postmodernism in New Zealand. In so doing, the author of this essay treats postmodernism as “an event rather than a period” and describes postmodernism’s development in the epoch of neo-liberalism.
“Not Going Where I Was Knowing”: Time and Direction in the Postmodernism of Gertrude Stein and Caroline Bergvall
Lynley Edmeades
In an essay spanning modernist and postmodernist poetics, Lynley Edmeades demonstrates how postmodern poetry cultivates “present-ness” by drawing on Lyotard’s concept of “constancy,” Gertrude Stein’s notion of “continuous present” and Caroline Bergvall’s adherence to “non-linearity.”
Nominalisms Ancient and Modern: Samuel Beckett, the Pre/Post/Modernist?
Holly Phillips
While describing the work of Beckett as deeply influenced by nominalism, Holly Phillips explores “ineffable permutations of intellectual history” and demonstrates how medieval philosophy has deeply influenced twentieth century literature. Simultaneously, Phillips undermines the idea that nominalism’s dismantlement of universals has finally been accomplished by postmodernism.
The Uses of Postmodernism
Jacob Edmond
Jacob Edmond argues that while postmodernism might be useless as a theoretical concept or periodization, it nevertheless illuminates changes, both local and global, in the final decades of the twentieth century. Edmond analyzes the uses of postmodernism in the United States, New Zealand, Russia, and China. He shows how the various and even contradictory uses of the term postmodernism allowed it to represent both sides in the unfolding tension between globalization and localism in late twentieth-century culture.
Processing Words, or Suspended Inscriptions Written with Light
Manuel PortelaIn this review, Manuel Portela considers Matthew G. Kirschenbaum's Track Changes in light of a "general computerization of the modes of production of writing."
A Riposte to Jeanette McVicker’s Thinking With the Planet
John BruniIn response to Jeanette McVicker's review of The Planetary Turn, John Bruni examines what it means to theorize a sense of the planetary.
Thinking With the Planet: a Review of The Planetary Turn: Relationality and Geoaesthetics in the Twenty-First Century
Jeanette McVickerUsing recent events of planetary significance as a point of departure, Jeanette McVicker reviews The Planetary Turn: Relationality and Geoaesthetics in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Amy J. Elias and Christian Moraru.
An Aesthetics of the Unsaid
Andrew Lindquist
Andrew Lindquist reviews Michael LeMahieu's Fictions of Fact and Value, examining the influence of logical positivism on American literature of the postwar era.
Old Questions from New Media
Jen PhillisJen Phillis situates Jessica Pressman's Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media as a rejoinder to "Neoliberal Tools (and Archives)" by David Allington, Sarah Brouillete, and David Golumbia.
“Persist in Folly”: Review of Mark Greif, The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933-1973.
John BruniAfterthoughts on the end of the sixties, the death of the author, the rise of Theory and the fall of humanism.
Review of Williams’s How to be an Intellectual
Chris FindeisenIn this review of How to Be an Intellectual: Essays on Criticism, Culture, and the University, Christopher Findeisen analyzes Jeffrey J. Williams's assessment of higher education in the United States. Linking the decline of funding for universities and colleges, rising student debt, the exploitation of academic labor, and the digital humanities, the review examines the omission of accounts of "the not-so-remarkable everyperson academic, the untenured, the up-and-comers, and the downtrodden."
Intersectional Ecologies: Matt Kenyon’s “Useful Fictions,” an interview
Lisa Swanstrom
Lisa Swanstrom interviews Matt Kenyon, founding member of S.W.A.M.P. (Studies of Work Atmosphere and Mass Production, co-founded with Doug Easterly), an Associate Professor of Art in the Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, and a 2015 TED Fellow.
Review of Heather Houser’s Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect
Sharalyn SandersIn this review of Heather Houser’s Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction, Sharalyn Sanders identifies the hopeful potential for environmental justice via contemporary literature. Finding a solidarity implied between intersectional identities and ecocriticism, Sander’s finds in Houser’s call for “scholarly activism” an antidote to the detachment which threatens to thwart environmental awareness.