Theoretical background to metamodernism as the new form of modern culture

Abstract

The purpose of the article is concerned with the systematization and generalization of the previous knowledge and theoretical achievements in the field of metamodernism as a cultural phenomenon of the 21st century. The interaction of metamodernism with such cultural trends as modernism, postmodernism, and post-postmodernism is determined. The general postulates manifesting the emergence of the new philosophical, aesthetical and cultural trend is defined. After the majority of scholars of postmodernism had emphasized its decline, it became imperative to coin a new terminological name for it to precisely describe the new order in art. Thus, the term “metamodernism” became widely spread as the name of the form of modern culture that had followed the postmodern and therefore needs detailed study and description, which constitutes the vitality of the research. This article aims to research the functions and the assignments as well as to analyze the constituents of metamodernism and the functioning specificity thereof. For the first time, the article has systematized understanding of the metamodern as a cultural trend of the 21st century that followed postmodernism and is being actively used to describe the nowadays’ structure of feelings oscillating between the typical modernist coherence and the exclusively postmodernist aloofness. It has also described the functioning conditions thereof due to the emergence of the virtual space.