Transcending Postmodernism: Performatism 2.0 is an ambitious attempt to expand and deepen the theory of performatism. Its main thesis is that, beginning in the mid-1990s, the strategies and norms of postmodernism have been displaced by ones that force readers or viewers to experience effects of aesthetically mediated transcendence. These effects include specific temporal strategies (“chunking”), stylizing separated subjectivity (the genius and the fool being its two main poles) and orienting ethics toward actions taken by centered agents bearing a sacral charge. The book provides a critical overview of other theories of post-postmodernism, and suggests that among five text-oriented theories there is basic agreement on its techniques and strategies.
Contents
Foreword
Introduction: Theories of Post-postmodernism
Chapter One: The Prison-house of Posthistoricism
Chapter Two: A Time for Transcendence
Chapter Three: Performatism and the Ethics of Perpetration
Chapter Four: From Fool to Genius: Separated Subjectivity in Performatism
Chapter Five: Aesthetics, Sexuality and Transcendence
Chapter Six: Performatism and Global Narratives
Chapter Seven: The End of Performatism?
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Raoul Eshelman is a Slavist who received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Constance and who worked primarily at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich until his retirement in 2022.