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ABSTRACT
In the past twenty years, the continued relevance of the term postmodernism for literary studies has increasingly been called into question. In the wake of this re-evaluation of literary terminology, many new terms have been coined, frequently associated still with a “-modern” suffix. This paper suggests that while the new modernisms hold relevance for specific concerns of contemporary literature, they have yet to provide an alternative framing for dominant trends. This is the case even when, as for metamodernism, a term has begun to move into general usage. The new modernisms, we suggest, are caught in a reductive association to the past which minimises their applicability to the dynamic newness of contemporary writing, particularly as it responds to ethico-political concerns. As an alternative to these terminologies we suggest “transglossic”, capturing the movement across forms and identities that uniquely defines contemporary literature.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Rudrum and Stavris, “Introduction,” xvxii.
2 Armitage, 25.
3 Hutcheon, “Gone Forever,” 10.
4 Hutcheon, “Epilogue,” 8.
5 Jameson, n.pag.
6 Ibid.
7 McLaughlin, “Post-postmodern Discontent,” 55.
8 Hutcheon, “Politics,” 181.
9 Eschelman, “Performatism,” 113; Bourriard, n.pag; Kirby, 277; Samuels, 173.
10 Mas’ud Zavarzadeh first coined the term metamodernism in the 1970s in reference to an attitudinal shift in post-war North American texts.
11 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Tank,” n.pag.
12 James and Seshagiri, 93.
13 Eve, 8; 22.
14 Rudrum and Stavris, “Introduction,” xvi.
15 Toth, Kindle location 261.
16 Garcia, 108.
17 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes,” 6.
18 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Utopia,” 65.
19 Bhabha, 183.
20 Eschelman and Toth do, however, avoid a “-modern” suffix, indicating there is a precedent, and impetus, for moving away from such terminology.
21 In “Misunderstandings and Clarifications” Vermeulen and van den Akker identify metamodernism's “structure of feeling” as synonymous with that identified within new materialist theory.
22 Eschelman questions the proposed dialectical oscillation advanced by Vermeulen and van den Akker (a “both-neither” dynamic) and accuses metamodernism of attempting to “straddle the fence” – either there is “dialectical synthesis” or “static” oscillation, but not both. “Notes,” 199. Indeed, Eschelman's performatism shares some minor similarities with the notion of envelopment, but differs in its suggestion that the performatist subject is not “authentic“ or “sincere” but rather “formally apart from others” with performatist narratives in general designed “to trick or coerce us into a position of believing in something unified”. Eschelman, “What,” n.pag.
23 This description undoubtedly resonates with modernist stream of consciousness, with echoes in particular of James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) or Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931).
24 Waidner, 9.
25 Ibid.
26 Smith, Autumn, 72.
27 Shields, 115.
28 See Arrow.
29 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Periodising,” 18.
30 Bentley, 740.
31 All the contributors to the collection Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, Depth are white; only two essays in the collection, Toth's and Jörg Heiser's, respectively, offer any notable reference to non-white writers and there are no South Asian or African writers referenced in the collection).
32 Heise, 4.
33 Gilroy, Against, 2; Gilroy, Empire 4; Hassan, 307.
34 Haraway, 117–118.
35 Shaw, “‘Some Magic is Normality’” discusses the unique capacity of fantasy literature to extend discussions of cosmopolitanism in new and innovative directions.
36 Hollinger, 13.
37 Van der Tuin and Dolphijn, 153.
38 Hassan, 308.
39 Laing, 66; Smith, Autumn, 119.
40 Smith, Autumn, 119.
41 Seghal, n.pag.
42 Evaristo, n.pag.
43 Jörg Heiser's theory of super-modernity, building on the work of postcolonial theorists such as Homi K. Bhabha, touches upon similar ground, albeit via its exceptionally vague discussion of acceleration and cultural entanglement. However, its concentration on how the digital (specifically the Internet) creates “a kind of computational aggregate of multiple influences and sources” in the contemporary moment is of limited use and also involves forms of rupture, fragmentation and exhaustion (echoing the postmodern moment). Heiser, “Pick”.
44 See Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “On Racism and Cancel Culture”; Ben Okri, “A Time Comes”.
45 See, for example, Patricia Scanlan's piece “Irish Writers on Covid 19”.
46 Smith, Autumn, 6.
47 See Eaglestone and Gilroy, After Empire.
48 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes,” 5.
49 Toth, Kindle location 1074.
50 See Hassan.
51 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Misunderstandings and Clarifications”, np.
52 Toth, Kindle location 1496.
53 Huber and Funk, 161–75.
54 McLaughlin, “Discontent,” 65; “Post-postmodernism,” 215.
55 Jameson, n.pag.
56 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes,” 12.
57 Eve, 13.
58 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes,” 5.
59 Although this in itself does not confer newness if we take Brian McHale's point in Postmodernist Fiction (1987) that the postmodern is not dystopic but itself heterotopic (again evidence of the problematics of these kind of distinctions).
60 Such optimism, equally, is not to be confused with the conservative nostalgia and readerly comfort of what in popular terms is defined as Up Lit.
61 Laing, 123–24.
62 Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Periodising,” 3.
63 Toth, Kindle location 1630.
64 Hassan, 311.
65 James, 204–14.
66 Barad, 66.
67 Smith, NW, 294.
68 Rudrum and Stavris, “Metamodernism,” 308.