Metamodernism And The Return Of Transcendence

The period known as Postmodernism is over. With it goes the pervasive cynicism, apathy, and nihilism that defined so much of American culture during the latter 20th century. Now, a new sensibility--called "Metamodernism" by an emerging consensus--has occasioned the return of various ideas long denigrated under Postmodernism, but also transformed by it. This Metamodern sensibility is characterized by a thorough reimagination of transcendence, and the exploration of new modes of depth and dimensionality for meeting the challenge of the contemporary meaning crisis. Such is the argument presented in this short but incisive text, as it tracks the development of this new period from the decline of Postmodernism to today. In addition, this analysis is supplemented by two accompanying essays that explore the Metamodern reconstruction of meaning through artistic mythmaking, with examples from contemporary art and literature.

Opening -- Part I. Metarealism. How the real world became a fable, or, The realities of social construction -- Part II. Process social ontology. Concepts in disintegration & strategies for demolition ; Process social ontology ; Social kinds -- Part III. Hylosemiotics. Hylosemiotics : the discourse of things -- Part IV. Knowledge and value. Zetetic knowledge ; The revaluation of values -- Conclusion : becoming metamodern.

Brings together many of the most influential voices in the scholarly and critical debate about post-postmodernism and twenty-first century aesthetics, arts and culture.

Atheism as a belief does not have to present intellectual credentials within academia. Yet to hold beliefs means giving reasons for doing so, ones which may be found wanting. Instead, atheism is the automatic default setting within the academic world. Conversely, religious belief confronts a double standard. Religious believers are not permitted to make truth claims but are instead forced to present their beliefs as part of one language game amongst many. Religious truth claims are expected to satisfy empiricist criteria of evidence but when they fail, as they must, religious belief becomes subject to the hermeneutics of suspicion. This book explores religious experience as a justifiable reason for religious belief. It uniquely demonstrates that the three pillars of critical realism - ontological intransitivity, epistemic relativity and judgemental rationality - can be applied to religion as to any other beliefs or theories. The three authors are critical realists by philosophical position. They seek to establish a level playing field between religion and secular ideas, which has not existed in the academic world for some generations, in order for reasoned debate to be conducted.

The modern world is in turmoil. The decline of the old religious myths has generated profound psychological instability for many people, with nothing yet to take their place. The resulting "meaning crisis" lies at the heart of so much of our cultural tumult, and will continue to unravel society until we find a way to affectively reintegrate a sense of mythic meaning and common purpose back into our lives. Personal myth offers us a constructive way forward. Since Carl Jung first explored the idea in the mid-20th century, numerous psychologists and comparative mythologists have advanced the concept in fruitful ways. This book attempts to develop it even further-to show how the process of personal mythmaking can not only return a sense of meaning to our individual lives but also form the basis of genuinely edifying spiritual community. The task of reimagining the sacred calls each of us to do our part-a project every bit as bold as the building of the great cathedrals. What will you build with your life?

A triptych of essays. "The Midwife" aims to provide lessons in a novel field called "sacred obstetrics," or the midwifery of God. Its main postulate is that God must be reborn into the world as an antidote to a pervasive cultural nihilism. The "Postscript" takes up a number of issues explored by Anti-Kierkegaard in "The Midwife," such as irony, indirect communication, reflection, and the pia fraus. On the other side of the coin, in "The Euthanist," anti-Nietzsche explores the landscape of a fully immanent spirituality after the murder of transcendence.

No doubt the 21st century will continue to surprise us, but the battle for the soul of humanity appears to be quickening. Do we have what it takes to save ourselves from ourselves? The internet has fundamentally changed our experience of shared life, for good and bad. The spiritual and ecological exhaustion of modernity is watched and discussed in a public realm mostly controlled by private interests, where our attention is easily hijacked and vulnerable to manipulation. There is joy and hope in life as always, but our species faces a capricious future. This anthology is an attempt to perceive our contexts and opportunities more clearly with an exploration of the metamodern sensibility: a structure of feeling, cultural ethos, epistemic orientation and imaginative outlook that is coalescing into an important body of theory and practice. Leading metamodern writers, including Zachary Stein, Bonnitta Roy, Lene Rachel Andersen, Hanzi Freinacht, Minna Salami and John Vervaeke, reflect upon the conjunction of premodern, modern and postmodern influences on the present to help contend with our plight in the 2020s and beyond. Fourteen chapters traverse a range of disciplines and domains to help the reader move beyond critique into vision and method. The aim is to create and inspire viable and desirable futures in this time between worlds, where one pattern of collective life is dying and another needs our help to be born.

The author suggests that in this era following the postmodern we have entered a new, monist epoch in which aesthetically mediated belief replaces endless irony as the dominant force in culture. The book documents the "new monism" through an examination of popular films and novels such as American beauty, Life of Pi, and Middlesex as well as in the work of major architects and artists such as Sir Norman Foster, Andreas Gursky, and Vanessa Beecroft. --book cover.