Timotheus Vermeulen talks with Brendan Graham Dempsey about the development of "metamodernism," a paradigm for understanding art and culture after postmodernism. After discussing the original impetus for and formation of the idea, he reflects on the continued relevance of the paradigm today, more than a decade after he and colleague Robin van den Akker first proposed it in their seminal 2010 article, "Notes on Metamodernism." More recent applications and deployments of the term "metamodernism" outside cultural studies proper (e.g., by Hanzi Freinacht, Lene Rachel Andersen, Tomas Björkman, Jonathan Rowson and Layman Pascal) are also considered. The conversation concludes with a look to the future of metamodernism, and a consideration of how it is playing out in the realm of contemporary spirituality.
00:00 Introduction
01:56 Beginnings: Coining "Metamodernism" for a New Cultural Sensibility
09:25 Is Metamodernism the "Dominant Structure of Feeling"? An Uneven Distribution
17:57 Roots: The Meta-Crisis, Internet 2.0, and a New Generation
27:23 Manifestations: Pragmatic Idealism on Left and Right: Informed Naivete and Relativist Absolutism
38:41 On Recent Developments: Cultural Metamodernism vs. Political/Developmental Metamodernism
56:19 Currents and Horizons: Depthiness and Metamodern Spirituality: 'Truth,' 'Transcendence,' and the Search for Meaning after Postmodernism
1:09:52 Political Metamodernism as Metamodern Cultural Production
1:15:36 Where Are We Going? Metamodernism as a Time Between Worlds
6. The Development of Metamodernism (w/ Timotheus Vermeulen)