Epimodernism: Six Memos for Literature Today

Description

Postmodernism has had its day. Are we now in the era of epimodernism? Reinterpreting the six “memos” that Italo Calvino suggested more than thirty years ago for “the new Millennium”, in this acclaimed book Emmanuel Bouju identifies six new values for literature in the twenty-first century: Superficiality, Secrecy, Energy, Acceleration, Credit, and Follow Through. Based on the principal meanings of the Ancient Greek prefix epi – surface, contact, origin, extension, duration, authority, and finality – these values represent six different ways of relating to the legacy of modernist utopias, reorienting postmodern critique and rebooting, with all due irony, its various forms of engagement and empowerment. Equal parts cultural criticism and literary creation, this highly original essay both enacts and explores the epimodern turn in contemporary European literature. Rigorous and humorous, provocative and playful, Epimodernism helps us to understand what literature can describe, imagine, and invent in our challenging times. Abstract Contents List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction Bibliography Chapter 2: Superficiality Art’s Infancy The Horse and the Bird The Aviator of Oklahoma The Paseo Game CAPITAL K The Letter’s Enigma A Gesture of Commitment Political Fiction (Superficial) Transition Bibliography Chapter 3: Secret Schrödinger’s Cat A Consistent Fable Acting as If In the Mirror Box Ghost Stories The Anarchist, the Photographer and the Writer Mujo and Suljo Return to Sarajevo Lazarus and Rambo: Last Blood In Praise of Nothingness An Unusable Truth For Whom Nada Tolls (Secret) Transition Bibliography Chapter 4: Energy Second-Degree Self-Portraits Belshazzar on Horseback Self-Exposure The Magic Disk of Authority (2666) An Endless Enigma Exposure to the Elements Encryption and Decryption Sisyphus, or the Magic Disk The Posthumous Author (Energetic) Transition Bibliography Chapter 5: Acceleration The Istorical (sic) Novel Nobody Bears Witness for the Witness The End of the Evidential Paradigm? A Difference of Breathing Conscription and Counter-Archiving A Quasi-Past Hollow Shells The Library Fire and the Gilded Butterflies The Ghost Riders (Accelerated) Transition Bibliography Chapter 6: Credit Authorising Ourselves (Literature) Giving Oneself a Name Posthumous Authority The Novel’s Power One Mode of Storytelling Against Another Provisional Trust What Is a Life Worth? Transition (on Credit) Bibliography Chapter 7: Follow Through (Epilogues) Consistency (Pierre Senges) Formal Cohesion Logical Coherence Ruderal Constancy Animal Consistency An Automaton Dream (Olivier Cadiot) The Voice of Deleuze Monsieur Test Phrasing Conclusion Bibliography Postface to the English Edition Post-Scriptum Index