A collection of literary essays investigating how diverse aspects of metamodernism manifest in 21st-century English-language fiction.The authors whose essays are collected in the volume analyze how various theories of metamodernism apply to contemporary fiction and thereby encourage readers to critically engage with this cultural phenomenon.The collection opens with a discussion of the original construal of metamodernism proposed by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker and its subsequent development by other theorists, and closes with two polemical essays asking questions about the name and status of the new cultural movement as well as its relation to postmodernism – its direct predecessor. Literary Manifestations of Metamodernism allows for a new appreciation of various aspects of contemporary fiction – such as its thematics (e.g. ethical concern with social justice and care, ecology, the real, the sense of engagement) and its form (e.g. metafiction, complex narrative structure, autofiction, hopeful tone)–while reinforcing metamodernism as a promising phenomenon that takes advantage of postmodern heritage yet surpasses it to explore the responsibility humans bear for socially-constructed reality.
Magdalena Sawa is Assistant Professor at John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland.Joanna Klara Teske is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English Literature and Culture at John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland.
Notes on ContributorsPrefaceMetamodernism and Other Construals of Contemporary Fiction: IntroductionMagdalena Sawa and Joanna Klara Teske (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)1. Joseph Knight: Metamodern Historicity and a Grand Narrative of JusticeCatriona Weiser (University of Vienna, Austria)2. Discovering, Recovering and Repairing the Past: Caring as Redemption in Peter Carey’s A Long Way From HomeBarbara Klonowska (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)3. Metamodernist Sensibility Vis-à-Vis the Problem of Evil in Ali Smith’s SpringJoanna Klara Teske (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)4. “How Good It Felt, Doing This Together!”: Metamodern Relationality in George Saunders’s Lincoln in The BardoSara Villamarín-Freire (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain)5. Myth, Ecology and a Metamodern Aesth-Ethical Sensibility in Robbie Arnott’s The Rain HeronSona Šnircová (Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Slovakia)6. Here and Not Now: Ledfeather’s Temporal Virtuality and the Conditions of RealismNathan D. Frank (The Covenant School, USA)7. Sally Rooney’s Heroine: Wavering between Experience and Abstract TheoriesBarbara Puschmann-Nalenz (Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Germany)8. Jasper Fforde’s Metamodernism—Meta-Storying in the Thursday Next SeriesDanica Stojanovic-Schaffrath (University of Graz, Austria)9. (Im)Possible Reparations: Metamodernism, Postcolonialism and Damon Galgut’s The PromiseSofia Kostelac (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)10. Constructing Literary “Metamodernism”: On Telling Silences, Cryptic Periods, and Sock PuppetsMary K. Holland (State University of New York at New Paltz, USA)11. Metamodernism for the MassesSteve Tomasula (University of Notre Dame, USA)Conclusion Magdalena Sawa and Joanna Klara Teske (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)