Post-Truth Society

Arpad Szakolczai is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at University College Cork, Ireland, and was ERC panel member 2011–2018. He is the author of Sociology, Religion and Grace: A Quest for the Renaissance, Comedy and the Public Sphere, Novels and the Sociology of the Contemporary and Permanent Liminality and Modernity, and co-author of Walking into the Void: A Historical Sociology and Political Anthropology of Walking, The Political Sociology and Anthropology of Evil: Tricksterology and From Anthropology to Social Theory: Rethinking the Social Sciences.

• Introduction Part I: Guides in Trickster Land 1. Hermann Broch: The Spell 2. Lewis Hyde: The Gift and The Trickster 3. Roberto Calasso: The Revolution and its Shipwrecking 4. Michel Serres: The Parasite, from Hermes the Communicator to Don Juan the First Hero of Modernity 5. Sándor Márai: From Krisztina a First Heroine of Modernity to an Encounter with the Russians 6. Colin Thubron: Encounters with Asia 7. Albert Camus: The Absurd Revolt Part II: Exploring the Regions of Trickster Land 8. Trickster Art: Imitativity, Effect-Mongering vs. Graceful Beauty, and Picasso 9. Trickster Thought: Magi, Mediation and Consciousness, and Sartre 10. Trickster Economy: The Fairground Origins of Infinite Substitutability 11. Trickster Politics: The Trick-Ful Joining of Representation and Election 12. Trickster Society: Welcome to Absurdistan! Conclusion

"The society of the trickster is a realm where we are permanently trying to pin the tail to the donkey of truth and where impartial, objective reality seems to be a distant memory. There is no better, or more fearless, guide to ‘Absurdistan’ than Arpad Szakolczai. A jaw-dropping book for our disturbed and disturbing times."Chris Rojek, Professor of Sociology, City University London, UK"At the moment we try to grasp modernity, or to relabel it as post-modernity, it eludes us. What appears as the end of history becomes obsolete as soon as it is identified. What appears as the final disenchantment becomes a new mystery. Every ‘critique’ ends in irrelevance. Arpad Szakolczai has provided a novel and deep reflection on this situation, in terms of trickster logic, the continuing illusory promise to dispel mystery which creates a substitute mystery."Stephen Turner, Distinguished University Professor, University of South Florida, USA