Open AccessWallace After Postmodernism (Again): Metamodernism, Tone, Tennis
Author(s) -
Timotheus Vermeulen
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
english literature
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2420-823X
pISSN - 2385-1635
DOI - 10.30687/el/2420-823x/2021/08/006
Subject(s) - postmodernism , generosity , tone (literature) , context (archaeology) , empathy , storytelling , aesthetics , subject (documents) , subject matter , epic , psychology , sociology , epistemology , philosophy , literature , history , social psychology , linguistics , art , narrative , computer science , theology , pedagogy , archaeology , library science , curriculum
David Foster Wallace’s writing has come to be synonymous with post-postmodernism. Strategies that are often singled out in this respect include the return to epic forms of storytelling; a post-ironic attitude towards its subject matter; a concern with empathy and affective generosity; and an ambiguous but reinvigorated relationship of language to ‘reality’. In this essay I consider some of these in the context of visual art. The aim is less to map one onto another, detailing how much they have in common, than it is to tease out some of the differences between them so as to pinpoint Wallace’s position on post-postmodernism’s cognitive map across the disciplines.