Say Hello to Metamodernism!: Understanding Today's Culture of Ironesty, Felt Experience, and Empathic Reflexivity

Say Hello to Metamodernism offers a guided tour of one of the newer “isms” on the block, metamodernism – the cultural period many say began emerging around the turn of the millennium, after postmodernism had lost much of its charm. By emphasizing qualities such as individual felt experience, and by braiding playful irony and experimentation with an unabashed delight in the intricacies of being human, metamodern artworks both reflect and help generate a new cultural sensibility. To understand it is to come to understand something about ourselves in today’s world.Within these pages, Greg Dember weaves his own encounters with society’s shifting sensibilities into an exploration of metamodernist works by musicians such as Sufjan Stevens, Elliott Smith, and Billie Eilish; by filmmakers like Miranda July, Wes Anderson, and Greta Gerwig; by novelists such as Dave Eggers, Elif Batuman, and Tope Folarin; and in television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bojack Horseman and Atlanta, while also considering how the metamodern sensibility is expressed in contemporary developments in religion and philosophy. Dember writes in a thoughtful, engaging style that is effective both at making academic concepts accessible to arts fans and artists themselves, and at introducing original ideas about metamodernism to scholars.About the Author: Greg Dember is a proud denizen of Seattle, Washington. He received his B.A. in psychology from Yale University, where he also studied literature, and an MS from Bastyr University where he trained in acupuncture. When not writing and speaking about metamodernism, Greg records and performs as a post-genre singer-songwriter. To pay the bills, Greg creates database systems for small businesses. He enjoys vegetarian cooking (specialty: refried-bean spaghetti) and is not half bad at ping pong.What People Are Saying:“...Earnest, yet ironic; mythic, yet tiny. By distilling potentially opaque concepts into accessible prose through examples spanning cult films like Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know and blockbuster musical acts like Billie Eilish, Dember offers a fun and fascinating primer for our cultural moment.”— Maren Haynes Marchesini, PhD. Director of Worship & Music at Hope Lutheran Church in Bozeman, Montana“Greg Dember has long struck me as one of the most perceptive and eloquent critics of contemporary culture. To see his observations and ideas come together in book form to theorize its most prevalent logic, metamodernism, is an exciting event. I doubt you'll find a more cohesive popular introduction to the films you've been seeing, the music you've listened to and the books that you've pretended at parties to have read, and the figures and sensibilities which unite them, than this. Or, indeed, a more fun one, for this book, packed with original insights and thoughts, is a joy from beginning to end. A superb achievement.”— Timotheus Vermeulen, PhD, Professor of Media, Culture and Society at the University of Oslo, Co-editor of Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect and Depth After Postmodernism“In Say Hello to Metamodernism Greg Dember uncovers the contours of that 'new thing' we can feel in movies, music, TV, and philosophy but haven't quite been able to name...”— Thomas Flight, Youtube Influencer, Video Essayist covering Film and Television“...Greg Dember's Say Hello to Metamodernism... is as invested in providing a groundwork for thinking about cultural history, as it is committed to offering an ambitious defense of the intellectual and emotional worth of feeling things strongly.”— Arielle Bernstein, MFA, Senior Professorial Lecturer in Literature, American University; writer for The Guardian, The Atlantic, Salon, AV Club Read more