Metamodernism - culture after the end of history

Timotheus Vermeulen is a full professor of media, culture and society at the University of Oslo in Norway. Together with Robin Van Den Akker, he coined the term metamodernism and kick started scholarship of this new idea, co-founding the webzine Notes on Metamodernity and co-editing the book series Studies in Metamodernism. Metamodernism refers to the culture or structure of feeling that comes after postmodernism - it's what we are living through right now. It's character is contested. One the one hand you have people advocating for sincerity, earnestness, pluralism, and kindness, on the other hand you have reactionaries and cancel culture enthusiasts seeking to impose their preferred grand story against the cynicism of postmodernity. How is metamodernism manifesting in art, politics, and popular culture? Tune in to find out. 

00:45 

Notes on Metamodernism E-zine https://www.metamodernism.com/ 

Vermeulen, T., & van den Akker, R. (2010). Notes on metamodernism. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 2(1). Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677

4:40

Plastic Time: Gesture on Screen (Book) T Vermeulen (2026)

14:40

Notes on by Camp Susan Sontag (1964), Available at:

https://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Sontag_Susan_1964_Notes_on_Camp.pdf 

22:40

Slavoj Žižek - Kinder Surprise Egg: https://youtu.be/4zHnJWN8YEA?si=vKzdpSXqX_vu53JR 

26:57

The Postmodern Condition (1979) Jean-François Lyotard Available at:

https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Lyotard_Jean-Francois_The_Postmodern_Condition_A_Report_on_Knowledge.pdf 

40:30

Doughnut Economics (2017) Kate Raworth

40:45

Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us (2023) Jon Alexandar

45:00

Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene (2015) McKenzie Wark 

Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Wark_McKenzie_ed_Molecular_Red_Reader.pdf 

50:30

Doughnut Economics Tools page: https://doughnuteconomics.org/tools