Annotated Bibliography of Works on Post-Postmodernism

Caution! Books and articles with titles like “After/Beyond/In the Wake of/ Postmodernism” seldom deliver what they promise. While many authors agree that postmodernism is somehow over with or ending, most still write in a posthistorical mode that doesn’t allow them to make categorical distinctions between old and new. The giveaway is often the  suffix “re-“ (as in reappraisal, reexamination, rethinking etc.), which usually means the author in question is more interested in rehashing postmodernism and poststructuralism than in saying anything new. Another common tactic is to dust off theoretical approaches  that were developed well before postmodernism and reintroduce them as "answers" to it.  My annotated bibliography  tries to identify off-topic or purely backwards-looking works and single out writings that help us understand post-postmodernism in a productive way. 

     I'll be adding new entries as they appear or as I come across them, and I'd be happy to include any suggestions coming from readers. 

Amian, Katrin. Rethinking Postmodernism(s). Charles S. Peirce and the Prag­matist Negotiations of Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Amsterdam 2008. 

• A typical "re-"work. The author reexamines a number of postmodern works using the pragmatic philosophy of Charles Saunders Peirce (who died in 1914). Only the chapter on Jonathan Foer’s Everything is Illu­minated suggests something like a post-postmodern perspective (p. 23 ff.) without going into any great detail about it.

Bourriaud, Nicholas. Altermodernism.  London 2009. 

• Bourriaud was curator of the widely discussed exhibition “Altermodernism” at the London Tate Gallery in 2009. According to his very brief “Alter­mo­dern Manifesto” (ca. 500 words) altermo­der­nism is a “pla­netary movement of creolization” directed against cultural relativism and deconstruction. On the whole, the concept remains vague and is often reminiscent of current definitions of postmodernism as well as Bourriaud’s earlier concept of “relationalism.”  This book is essentially a catalogue accompanying the exhibition, and contains  Bourriaud's manifesto along with contributions by the (very disparate) participating artists.

Boxall, Peter. Twenty-First-Century Fiction. A Critical Introduction. Cambridge UK 2013.

• A wide-ranging posthistorical exercise in contemporary literary criticism that does not wish to "propose a stable new critical paradigm, a common nomenclature or critical vocabulary within which we might accommodate the new novel" (p. 17). Having set the bar this low, Boxall succeeds in describing some pretty significant differences between what he calls "twenty-first-century literature" and postmodernism but ventures no further than that. There is a passing acknowledgment of metamodernism and performatism (p. 59) but no discussion. Chapters on "Literature and Historical Memory," "The Limits of the Human," "Terrorism, Radicalism, and the Avant-Garde" and "Democracy, Globalisation."

Brooks, Christopher K. Beyond Postmodernism: Onto the Postcontemporary. Newcastle upon Tyne 2013.

• A jumble of  unrelated articles that address (among other things) the psychoanalytic critic Slavoj Žižek, transhumanism, an unfinished novel written by Julia Ward Howe in the 19th century, automodernity (see the entry further below on Robert Samuels), and Salman Rushdie's classic postmodern novel Satanic Verses. Only one author (Lissi Krikelis in her article on "Metafiction in the Post-Technological Age: The Case of People of Paper and Metamaus") bothers to address at length the existing body of theory devoted to post-postmodernism. Krikelis however says that "post-millennium metafiction" "expands" postmodernism rather than negating it (p. 113). Brooks's own definition of the "postcontemporary" (a phrase he borrows from Fredric Jameson, see Blog Post Nr. 2) doesn't go much further than stating that it is a) no longer postmodern and b) oriented towards the future (p. 139).

Ceriello, Linda. “Toward a Metamodern Reading of Spiritual but not Religious mysticisms.” In William B. Parsons (ed.), Being Spiritual but not Religious. Past, Present Future(s). New York 2018, pp. 200-218.

• A historically sensitive, well-researched, and subtly argued attempt to show how metamodernism can be used to explain the SBNR (spiritual-but-not-religious) trend following New Age postmodernism. For more see also   Blog Post Nr. 9.

Ceriello, Linda. “The Big Bad and the Big ‘Aha.’ Metamodern Monsters as Transformational Figures of Instability.” In Michael E. Heyes (ed.). Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques. Lanham 2018, pp. 207-233. 

• A historically informed treatment of monsters that uses metamodernism to analyze the TV cult series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and differentiate it from traditional, modern, and postmodern figurations of monstrosity. The author introduces the notion of the "Big 'Aha,'" meaning that "profound transformation" is "open to ordinary individuals" and "occur[s] in everyday contexts" (p. 208). See also Blog Post Nr. 9.

Ceriello, Linda. ,  Dember, Greg. “The Right to a Narrative: Metamodernism, Paranormal Horror and Agency in Cabin in the Woods.” In Darryl Caterine and John W. Morehead (eds.), The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape, New York 2019, pp. 42-54. 

•  Using metamodernism and the double-frame concept of performatism, the authors convincingly show how the horror movie Cabin in the Woods "portrays its protagonist-victims reclaiming their agency, developing their own narratives about what is happening to them, and eventually claiming their sense of dignity in the face of an apocalyptically dire situation."  For more on Ceriello and Dember's work see also Blog Post Nr. 9.
  

Crowther, Paul. Philosophy after Postmodernism: Civilized Values and the Scope of Knowledge. London 2003.

• A philosophical attempt to combine Norbert Elias’s theory of civilization with Ernst Cassirer‘s neo-Kantian epistemology (both thought systems existed well before postmodernism) in order to overcome the social philosophy of postmodernism (Derrida, Lacan/Žižek, Bourdieu). No discussion of cultural history in the usual sense of the term.

Dember, Greg. Say Hello to Metamodernism!: Understanding Today's Culture of Ironesty, Felt Experience, and Empathic Reflexivity. 2024.

• A popularizing account of metamodernism by a non-academic who is involved in developing the Vermeulen/van den Akker version of metamodernism. Chapters on film, music, television, literary fiction, philosophy and religion. I hope to review this book soon.

Eshelman, Raoul. Performatism, or the End of Postmodernism. Aurora CO 2008.

• My book-length contribution to the discussion. For more of my own material see What is Performatism?, the Blog, and the Performatist Bibliography.

Eshelman, Raoul. Die Rückkehr des Glaubens. Zur performatistischen Wende in der Kultur. Hamburg 2016.

• A short introduction to performatism in German aimed at the general public. 

Eshelman, Raoul. Transcending Postmodernism: Performatism 2.0. New York 2025.

• My latest work, with chapters on other theories of post-postmodernism, time, ethics, subjectivity, aesthetics and global literature. 

Faye, Jan. After Postmodernism. A Naturalistic Reconstruction of the Hu­ma­nities. London 2012. 

• A philosophical attempt to define the human sciences anew using traditional hermeneutics; contemporary culture is not treated at all.

Feßler, Nadine. Being Struck by the Event. Literature and its Subjects after Postmodernism. München 2016. 

• An original and stimulating approach to post-postmodern narrative that uses elements of performatism,  Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology, and Georgio Agamben's concept of the homo sacer. Feßler's central concept is that of "captivation," which refers to the way post-postmodern literature empowers ostensibly weak subjects by constructing events that either "captivate" them in a phenomenological sense (Marion) or that make them captive literally (Agamben). Events are said to occur through framing (a performatist idea), which restricts fictional subjects but at the same time forces them to act in a positive and goal-oriented way. Analyses of David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, Ian McEwan's  Atonement, Nicole Krauss's History of Love,  Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Anne Enright's The Gathering, and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. Feßler argues that these works are unequivocally post-postmodern.

Frie, Roger et al. (eds.).  Beyond Postmodernism. New Dimensions in Clinical Theory and Practice. London 2009. 

• A collection of essays dealing with psychoanalysis and psychology after poststructuralism. Alongside cautious attempts to critique poststructuralism one finds contributions that are still strongly oriented towards it. No direct connection to literary criticism.  

Funk, Wolfgang. The Literature of Reconstruction. Authentic Fiction in the New Millennium. London 2015.

• Funk wants to revive the modernist concept of authenticity for the study of post-postmodern literature by paradoxically hooking it up with the notion of metareference, which is by definition inauthentic. Books analyzed include Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Julian Barnes's England, England, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. For a full discussion see Blog Post Nr. 7, "On Authenticity and Post-Postmodernism". 

Gans, Eric.  “The Post-Millennial Age,” Chronicles of Love and Resentment  Nr. 209, 3 Juni 2000 http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/views/vw209.htm; “Post-Millennial Thoughts," Chronicles of Love and Resentment  Nr. 253: 22 December  2001 http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/views/vw253.htm

• Gans’s concept of "post-millennialism” was one of the very first attempts to name post-postmodernism, however he never developed the concept further in a systematic way. For the neo-conservative Gans post-millennialism means the end of “victi­mary politics,” whereby a left-wing postmodern victimary attitude is replaced by a conciliatory “non-victimary dialogue” with a right-wing tilt. In American (Trumpian) politics it’s hard to see where this has taken place. 

Haselstein, Ulla et al. (eds.). The Pathos of Authenticity. American Passions of the Real. Hei­delberg 2010. 

• A collection of essays addressing the newly arisen, rather unpostmodern turn towards authenticity in American literature. In keeping with the unwritten tenets of posthistoricism, the editors see in this development a “revision of postmodernism” (p. 19) rather than a distinctly new stage of literary development. Accordingly, none of the contributions contains any concept of post-postmodernism. 

Hermann, Robert. Präsenztheorie. Möglichkeiten eines neuen Paradigmas anhand dreier Texte der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur (Goetz, Krausser, Herrndorf). Baden Baden 2019. 

• An important, philosophically founded contribution to the discussion on post-postmodernism. Hermann sets forth a historically based, very lucid comparative discussion of philosophical theories of presence and links these with the ongoing critical discussion on post-postmodernism. After a contrastive discussion of how modernist theories of presence operate in the work of Heidegger and Wittgenstein, the author treats contemporary theories of presence as represented by George Steiner, Jean-Luc Nancy, Karl-Heinz Bohrer, Martin Seel, Dieter Mersch, and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and then applies these in analyses of three contemporary German authors.  The book fills an important gap in the discussion on post-postmodernism by highlighting the concept of presence, and it shows how the thinkers in question theorize post-postmodernism without really being aware of it.  See also my longer review in the Blog.

Hickman, Larry. Pragmatism as Post-Postmodernism. New York 2007.

• A philosophical attempt to promote pragmatist philosophy (which arose around 1900) as an alternative to the philosophy of postmodernism; no treatment of contemporary cultural developments.

Hoberek, Andrew (ed.). Twentieth Century Literature 3 (2007). After Postmodernism: Form and History in Contemporary American Fiction.

• Seven very cautious attempts to move beyond postmodernism. The authors are aware that the classical narrative strategies of postmodernism don’t work anymore but are unfortunately unable to conceive of anything that could possibly replace them. Articles on Karen Tei Yama­shita’s Tropic of Orange, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, David Foster Wallace, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Paul Auster's movies as well as distinctly postmodern authors like Roth and Delillo. Typical of the authors' normative resistance to post-postmodernism is Samuel Cohen's article on Jeffrey Eugenides' novel Middlesex. Cohen says the book "fails" because it "imposes a false closure" on the story of its hermaphroditic protagonist's gender crisis (p. 371). Since closure is one of the main narrative strategies of post-postmodernism, it's hard to see how Cohen will ever be able to define the new development in a positive way.

Hoberek, Andrew. “Introduction: After Postmodernism,” Twentieth Century Literature 3 (2007), 233-247. 

• Gives an overview of the articles collected in the Twentieth Century Lite­ra­ture special issue “After Postmodernism: Form and His­tory in Contemporary American Fiction.” (See above.) Hoberek’s cautious, eminently posthistorical conclusion: “American fiction has entered a phase of as-yet uncategorized diversity” (p. 240).  For a critique of this position see Post Nr. 1 in the Blog, "The Misery of Posthistoricism."

Holland, Mary K. Succeeding Postmodernism: Language and Humanism in Contemporary American Literature. New York 2013.

• A cautious (and heavily conflicted) posthistorical attempt to address the issue of post-postmodernism without giving up poststructuralist methodology. Hence "the literature we are seeing in the nascent twenty-first century is still postmodern, rather than something wholly beyond postmodernism." The focus is on the resurgence of "empathy, presence, and connection via poststructural language" and on the return of humanism. For more on this see Post Nr. 4 in the Blog, "Theory Smackdown."

Holland, Mary K. The Moral Worlds of Contemporary Realism. New York 2020.

• A follow-up work to Holland's heavily posthistorical Succeeding Postmodernism, which saw post-postmodernism as an extension of postmodernism (see above). In both works, Holland clings to poststructuralist theory (the theoretical extension of postmodernism) to describe post-postmodernism, and suggests the term "poststructural realism" to describe the new development. In doing so, she expands the term "realism" to include a metafictional or self-referential level (works that self-consciously point out or reflect on their own technique are normally thought of as being "unrealistic" or "anti-realistic"). As a result,  realism becomes conceptually inseparable from anti-realism, and her definition of post-postmodernism sounds suspiciously postmodern: "[...] all of these examples of contemporary realism seek to escape singularity, linearity, binarism, and closure by encompassing multiple or even infinite perspectives, voices, planes, or narratives, as if to place the reader in an infinity of subject positions from which to observe the phenomena of their worlds" (p. 257). Since "realism" doesn't turn out to be very helpful in marking epochal boundaries Holland suggests (rather weirdly) that an entirely new, transcendent epoch is in the making where writing will occur in a completely virtual mode: "Only art created in a fully virtual world, or one in which human experience has become thoroughly virtual, can reveal to us the representational techniques and philosophies of ontology and epistemology that will characterize the next new realism, virtual realism" (p. 256).  Individual chapters treat David Foster Wallace, Steve Tomasula, "material literature," and Don Delillo, among others. 

Hron, Irina (ed.). Einheitsdenken. Figuren von Ganzheit, Präsenz und Transzendenz nach der Postmoderne. Nordhausen 2015.

• Collection of essays (mostly in German) from a conference I organized together with the editor in 2010. Articles on Daniel Kehlmann (Leonhard Herrmann), Bernard Carvalho (Jobst Welge), Haneke's movie The White Band (Nadine Feßler), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (Irina Schulzki) as well as on contemporary Polish prose (Dorota Patrzałek) and transgender constructions in European fiction (Yuan Xue). Also an article by myself on the photographer Alina Kisina (in German). All authors are committed conceptually in one way or another to moving past postmodernism.

Huber, Irmtraud. Literature after Postmodernism: Reconstructive Fantasies. London 2014. 

• In spite of the title's "re-" a good, open-minded critical discussion of existing theories of post-postmodernism accompanied by astute analyses of works by Michael Chabon, Mark Z. Danielewski, Jonathan Safran Foer and David Mitchell. The author, who wants to foreground the “renegotiation of the communicative bond between author/narrator and reader,” seems willing to move beyond poststructuralism both in theory and practice but otherwise remains cautious: "[this study] does not posit a radical break with postmodernism" (p. 45). There is a very good and even-handed discussion of competing notions of post-postmodernism in Chapter 1, pp. 21-50. For more on this see Post Nr. 4 in the Blog, "Theory Smackdown."

Huber, Sebastian. Subject of the Event. Reagency in the American Novel after 2000. New York 2016.

• A dogmatically posthistorical study that "rejects the turn towards [...] ostensibly post-postmodernist writers" (p. 7) and "refrain[s] from seeing a movement towards post-postmodernist aesthetics or politics" (p. 10). The author uses Alain Badiou's philosophy of the event to define subjects marked by "reagency," which is defined as "various subjective procedures that are endowed with moments of empowerment" (p. 13) and as the "necessary reciprocity of event and subject as well as the subject's repetitive 'fidelity' to the propositions that an event evokes" (p. 5). The author correctly identifies a literary trend that contradicts the postmodern stylization of the subject as being powerless and determined by outside forces, but thinks that this is somehow an extension of postmodernism. Chapters on Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Jess Walter's The Zero, Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions, Paul Beatty's Slumberland and Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day.

Kirby, Alan. Digimodernism. How New Technologies Dismantle the Post­modern and Reconfigure our Culture. New York 2009.

• A sweepingly argued socio-cultural definition of post-postmodernism emphasizing the role of media. Kirby assumes that digitization leads to "new forms of textuality“ (p. 1) that allows users to intervene in text production (examples being Wikipedia, reality TV, videogames etc.) The focus is mainly on digitized pop culture, which in Kirby’s pessimistic vision is displacing high culture and leads to the “death of competency“ (p. 241). One of the few authors who unequivocally try to define a shift to the post-postmodern. Analyzes many concrete works of digital culture. Lively argumentation. See also Blog Post Nr. 8. 

Lipovetsky, Gilles. Hypermodern Times. Cambridge (UK) 2005. 

• A sociologically oriented, highly speculative essay that tries to describe our socio-cultural condition using the prefix “hyper-”. According to Lipovetsky, hypermodern society is oriented towards extreme consumer consumption and hedonism and is marked by an accelerated perception of time; rapid changes in technology and science have an unsettling effect on its members. This definition bears a suspicious resemblance to current notions of postmodernism. One original point Lipovetsky makes is that “individual sovereignty” (p. 67) has become important as a reaction to this development (something that is not normally thought to be an aspect of postmodernism). The book addresses society but not culture in the narrow sense of the word.  

MagShamhráin, Rachel (ed.). Germanistik in Ireland. Special Issue. After Postmodernism / Nach der Postmoderne 6 (2011).

• The contributors address the end of postmodernism (Kirby), the concept of “meta­modernism“ (Vermeulen and van den Akker) as well as individual works  of German literature (Lehr’s Fata Morgana, Rabino­vici’s Ohnehin, Ulf Zieger’s writings und Duve’s Anständig Essen).

Matthews, Graham.    Ethics and Desire in the Wake of Postmodernism. Contemporary Satire. London 2012. 

• The author undertakes a “reappraisal of postmodernism and its effects” while not venturing far beyond the bounds of existing poststructuralist theories (e.g., Lacan); he does not attempt any binding definition of post-postmodernism. There is, however, an interesting application of Alain Badiou’s ethics to literature  (pp. 105-128) and there are detailed analyses of Ellis’s Lunar Park, Palah­niuk’s Fight Club, Houellebecq’s Platform, and Will Self’s Dorian.

Metamodern Theory and Praxis. https://sts.williams.edu/metamodern/v1i1/

• A new Open Access journal (founded in 2024) edited by Jason Josephson Storm and Brendan Graham Dempsey. The journal's concept of metamodernism focuses mainly on the human sciences and their methodology and has little or nothing to do with the notion of cultural metamodernism promoted by Timotheus Vermeulen, Robin van den Akker and Alison Gibbons.  The contributions to the first edition focus  on religious studies (there is an article on Islamic Studies), on education ("Piaget as Metamodernist") as well as on "Polymodern Economics" and "Place as Communicative Body." There are also poems, a manifesto and photographs in the Praxis section. 

Moraru, Christian. Cosmodernism. American Narrative, Late Globalization, and the New Cultural Imaginary. Ann Arbor 2011. 

• “Cosmodernism” stands for a “weak epochality” (p. 314) that is strongly oriented towards postmodernism but  emphasizes “ethical relationality” as well as “the imaginary of globalized aesthetic relations” (p. 313). Cosmodernism arises mainly through the process of globalization unleashed by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and still "rel[ies] copiously on postmodern techniques" (p. 316). The book contains analyses of a wide range of contemporary American literary texts--many of them indisputably postmodern--coupled with theoretical reflection on ethics and globalization. Oriented towards poststructuralist Levinasian ethics as well as the later work of Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. For more on this see Post Nr. 4 in the Blog, "Theory Smackdown."

Moraru, Christian (ed.). "Focus: Metamodernism." American Book Review 4 (2013).

• Issue of the ABR devoted to different concepts of post-postmodernism, with an introduction by Moraru ("Thirteen Ways of Passing Postmodernism") and with review articles by Tim Vermeulen, Robin van den Akker, Alison Gibbons, Mary K. Holland, Raoul Eshelman, Matthew Mullins, Alan Kirby and others. 

Nealon, Jeffrey. Post-Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Just-in-Time Capitalism. Stanford 2012. 

• A theoretically overloaded attempt to define post-postmodernism using Fredric Jameson’s famous article “The Cul­tural Logic of Late Capitalism” as a jumping-off point. Nealon thinks that post-postmodernism is an “intensification” of postmodernism (which in turn is an “intensification” of modernism, p. 8). Since everything is an “intensification” of everything else there obviously isn’t much point developing any new concepts or a new historical perspective. The first part of the book consists of sweeping discussions of cultural and economic developments in the US; the second is made up of critical discussions of a mixed bag of philosophers and cultural critics (Adorno, Hardt and Negri, Derrida, Badiou, Jameson and others). Unlike his model Jameson, the author doesn’t bother to analyze any individual works of literature or art. Considering that the author is inspired by Marxist cultural criticism, his posthistorical conclusion is remarkably conservative: “(…) it’s hard to understand today as anything other than an intensified version of yesterday” (p. 8).

Post-postmodernism (Wikipedia entry)     

• This site offers some rough orientation but has not been updated for a very long time (disclosure: I wrote most of it in 2007/2008 under the pseudonym Hastrman {a Czech water ghoul} but haven’t touched it since then). The version that I last saw on 29 July 2019 is pretty much the same as my original contribution, with a paragraph or two on metamodernism that was added on later. (The paragraph on performatism was deleted by another editor who was of the considered opinion that it had nothing to do with post-postmodernism and I have left well enough alone.)     

Rudrum, David; Askin, Ridvan and Beckman, Frida. (eds). New Directions in Philosophy and Literature. Edinburgh 2019. 

• The editors describe this large (486 pp.) collection of essays as "the first attempt to map out the many exciting ways in which new developments in twenty-first-century philosophy are entering into dialogue with the study of literature" (ix). In reality the collection is a mixed bag of articles that deals with both topical philosophical issues (objected-oriented ontology, Quentin Meillassoux, Bruno Latour, the anthropocene) as well as not-so topical ones (the work of Stanley Cavell and Hélène Cixous). For a detailed review of three articles relating directly to post-postmodernism, see the Performatism Blog, Post 14.

Rudrum, David and Stavros, Nicholas (eds.). Supplanting the Postmodern. An Anthology of Writings on the Arts and Culture of the Early 21st Century. New York 2015.

• The first anthology devoted to post-postmodernism. Contains mostly emendated versions of programmatic articles by many of the authors listed here, including Bourriaud, Eshelman, Hassan, Kirby, Lipovetsky, Nealon, Samuels, Vermeulen and van den Akker and others. The editors seem  generally skeptical about the project of defining post-postmodernism and misrepresent a number of the contributions in their introduction. For a reply to the editors' commentary on my contribution see Blog Post Nr. 6, "A Note to the Editors of Supplanting the Postmodern."

Rutten, Ellen. Sincerity after Communism. A Cultural History. New Haven and London 2017.

• Sincerity, like authenticity, is often viewed as a marker of post-postmodernism. This very well-researched and accessible study examines how the discourse of sincerity developed both during the perestroika phase in the Soviet Union and after the collapse of Communism. Rutten also treats sincerity discourse in the West and shows both parallels and differences between Russia and the West. Unfortunately, by treating only discourse rather than actual works of literature, film, or art and by maintaining a "postbinary" approach, Rutten sticks to a posthistorical position that cannot distinguish clearly between what is sincere and what is not. Put somewhat differently, Rutten can't provide criteria separating post-postmodern sincerity from postmodern irony, since in a post-binary world both are hopelessly entangled with one another. As a result, the term becomes so muddled as to be almost unusable. For a more detailed discussion see my review in the internet journal Apparatus.

Samuels, Robert. New Media, Cultural Studies, and Critical Theory After Post­modernism: Automodernity from Zizek to Laclau (Educa­tion, Psycho­analysis, and Social Transformation). New York 2009. 

•  A socio-political study dealing only incidentally with culture in the narrow sense of the word (there are analyses of Jurassic Park and The Matrix, which in my book are not exactly post-postmodern). To describe the post-postmodern situation the author coins the term “auto­­mo­dernity,” which he defines as a “libertarian backlash against the post­modern welfare state” (p. 4). Representatives of this new direction include the Marxist critic Fredric Jameson (an influential theorist of postmodernism) and the Marxist-influenced psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek (a follower of Jacques Lacan and someone normally associated with postmodernism). Samuels also points out the interrelationship between unregulated social systems and autonomous, hedonistic individuals who allow themselves to be distracted from “social reason” through video games and other media phenomena. (p. 127) Basically, Samuels thinks postmodernism is socially and politically progressive whereas automodernism isn’t. Samuels’ book is the explicit expression of an attitude held tacitly by many academics, namely that because postmodernism and poststructuralism are critical and progressive anything coming after them must be uncritical and reactionary.

Šnircová, Soňa and Tomaščiková, Slávka (eds). Postmillennial Trends in Anglophone Literatures, Cultures and Media. Newcastle upon Tyne, 2019.     

• A collection of essays whose first section ("Addressing the Theories of a New Cultural Paradigm") consists of articles applying performatism, digimodernism, hypermodernism, and metamodernism. 

Stierstorfer, Klaus (ed.). Beyond Postmodernism. Reassessments in Literature, Theory, and Culture. Berlin 2003. 

• This early collection of essays must have set some sort of record for off-topic contributions. About half the authors flatly refused to address the issue of post-postmodernism at all; only the section “Be­yond Postmo­dernism” (pp. 197-318) contains (very tentative) articles suggesting that there is indeed something "beyond." Most notable are the contributions by Ihab Hassan, one of the pioneers of postmodernist criticism in America, and Vera Nünning. 

Storm, Jason  Ānanda Josephson. Metamodernism: The Future of Theory. Chicago 2021.

• An ambitious, densely written philosophical attempt to develop a methodology for the human sciences in the aftermath of postmodernism and poststructuralism;  it was developed independently of Vermeulen and van den Akker's metamodernism and does not address culture in the narrow sense of the word. The author claims to be inspired by Hegel's dialectic (p. 5), but resolves seemingly intractable binary oppositions such as social construction/ontology, deconstruction/reconstruction, animal/human etc. by conceiving of them as positions on conceptual continua--something that effectively sabotages any dialectical friction or negation.  I hope to be treating this complex and conceptually frustrating work in more detail soon.

Timmer, Nicoline. Do You Feel it Too? The Post-Postmodern Syndrome in Ameri­can Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium. Amsterdam 2010. 

• A stimulating study based on concrete text analysis that defines the "post-postmodern syndrome" in terms of a new orientation towards “being human”; detailed analyses of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest,  Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Mark Danielewski House of Leaves. For a useful summary of Timmer's findings check out the Appendix listing features of the post-postmodern novel, pp. 359-361. Definitely a step forward in the overall discussion. For more on this see Post Nr. 4 in the Blog, "Theory Smackdown."

Vaessens, Thomas (ed.). Reconsidering the Postmodern. European Literature beyond Relativism. Amsterdam 2011. 

• Individual articles on all European literatures as well as American and Spanish-language literatures that consider the possibility of a “late postmodernism” and a possible “something after.” The emphasis is however exclusively on “late postmodernism” – none of the authors is willing to commit themselves to a definition of post-postmodernism. Most of the contributions are too short to provide a true overview of the national literatures in question, and the quality of the articles is uneven. The contributions on “new sincerity“ in Russian literature by Ellen Rutten (see also the entry on her book in this Bibliography) und on Foer/Wal­lace/Eggers in American literature (den Dulk) address important issues in the new cultural development and are of some use. The article on Polish literature (Neu­kierken) discusses authors (Miłosz und Herbert) whose relationship to postmodernism is more or less nonexistent to begin with.

Van den Akker, Robin und Vermeulen, Tim.  "Notes on Metamodernism" <www.metamodernism.com>; see also their“Notes on Metamodernism,” Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 2 (2010).

• A well-kept blog that became an internet journal, metamodernism.com tries to analyze post-postmodernism in all realms of culture. According to van den Akker and Vermeulen's original manifesto metamodernism is a “structure of feeling” that evokes an “oscillation” between “modern sincerity and postmodern irony.” The authors and their many co-contributors document this oscillation in a wide array of areas (architecture, fashion, theory, art, literature, TV etc.) without for the most part attempting to develop concepts of their own; existing modern and postmodern concepts and practices are made to oscillate according to the particular context. Very close in sensibility (though not in methodology) to performatism.  For a critique of metamodernism  see Post Nr. 4 in the Blog, "Theory Smackdown" and Nr. 8, "Performatism, Political Economy, and the Media."    

Van den Akker, Robin, Vermeulen, Timotheus and Gibbons, Alison (eds.). Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, and Depth after Postmodernism. London 2017.

• The first book devoted to metamodernism. It includes a twenty-page introduction by the editors repeating the basic precepts of metamodernism developed in their original manifesto (see above) as well as twelve contributions that for the most part share the metamodernist interest in moving past postmodernism. Most of the articles are not, strictly speaking, direct applications of metamodernism, and many use methodological approaches that are distinctly different from it. The book has three thematic sections: Historicity, Affect, and Depth, as well as a rambling, completely off-topic Epilogue by the art critic James Elkins in which he states "we are still good poststructuralists" (203).    
•  Apart from theme, the articles can be categorized roughly according to their use or non-use of metamodernism. The articles by James MacDowell (on quirkiness and film criticism), by Alison Gibbons (on autofiction), by Gry Rustad and Kai Hanno Schwind (on sitcoms), and by Sam Browse (on the political rhetoric of Jeremy Corbyn) may be taken as exemplary applications of metamodernist notions like "depthiness," "oscillation," or "neoromanticism." 
•  By contrast, Josh Toth's analysis of Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved seems vaguely off-topic. Toth calls the book a "forerunner of metamodernism" (p. 53) but doesn't seem much interested in addressing post-postmodernism itself. Something similar applies to the art critic Jörg Heiser's take on "super-hybridity" and Sjoerd van Tuinen's article on the return of craftsmanship in art. In both cases it's not clear what the connection to metamodernism is, and the basic attitude is posthistorical, meaning that the critics in question think that postmodernism is over with but that it's still not possible to conceptualize any historical development after it--thus implicitly confirming the endless inevitability of postmodernism. 
• The remaining five authors set forth clear-cut methodological positions that were developed independently of metamodernism. Lee Konstantinou writes about post-irony in American literature (he has a good book on it called Cool Characters), Nicoline Timmer analyzes David Foster Wallace (see her book Do You Feel it Too? listed above), Irmtraud Huber and Wolfgang Funk reiterate their notion of a "literature of reconstruction" (see also their respective entries in this Bibliography) and I apply performatism to contemporary art photography. 
• For a more detailed critique of metamodernism see the Performatist Blog entries 12 and 13, "Notes on 'Notes on Metamodernism'" 1 and 2. 

     I