"We need to rediscover the living body" : Gabriel Josipovici's metamodern project in Goldberg: Variations

Title: "We need to rediscover the living body" : Gabriel Josipovici's metamodern project in Goldberg: Variations
Author: Sawa, Magdalena
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2020, vol. 46, iss. 2, pp. 261-279
Extent
261-279
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
In the epilogue to the 2002 edition of The Politics of Postmodernism, Linda Hutcheon proclaims the end of postmodernism. Emerging in its place is a new "structure of feeling," conceived by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker as metamodernism. Characterised by an oscillating in-betweenness or a dialectical movement between conflicting positions which are neither fully affirmed nor completely negated, the cultural paradigm of metamodernism is situated between genuine commitment and ironic detachment, between hope and melancholy, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity. The aim of the present article is to show that Gabriel Josipovici's novel Goldberg: Variations (2002) endorses this incipient metamodern sensibility by advocating the embodied nature of the creative process. Elaborate techniques of intermediality, the ontological instability of narrative levels and extensive metafiction are employed by the author to propound a more human perspective on literature and art in general.
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