Metamodernism in Contemporary Culture and Literature

Abstract

Abstract

The theory of metamodernism applied in the articles of this thematic section seeks to explain and interpret different contemporary cultural phenomena in a context where Western societies and cultures have moved beyond postmodernity. Cultural theorists have proposed that this change began with the dawn of the new millennium and has been propelled by global social, political, economic, and ecological predicaments such as societal polarisation, the crisis of liberal democracy, the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the loss of biodiversity and the impending climate disaster. As the ecological turn, the Anthropocene, and posthumanism have changed the paradigms of the humanities, the pertinence of postmodern social and cultural theories has become increasingly debatable. Consequently, an ongoing attempt to describe the situation the Western cultures find themselves in has produced several new concepts to supplant postmodernity: post-postmodernity, altermodernity, digimodernity and hypermodernity (see e.g. Nealon), for example. However, in recent years, it has been the multidisciplinary and holistic theory of metamodernism that has become the most prominent approach to understanding the era after postmodernity.