post 58: done with "private citizens"
background
i finished “private citizens”1 yesterday and ruminated more about the whole postmodernism meta
yesterday, i said2 it’s almost like tulathimutte writes in a way that’s so self aware, it’s almost “post-post-modernism,” without really knowing that “post-post-modernism” was an actual thing
apparently, it is3, and private citizens is sort of representative of this new movement of “postpostmodernism” or “new sincerity!” consider the following excerpt from some academic literature on literature (woah (jk))
The plot follows four neurotic Stanford University graduates—Will, Cory, Linda and Henrik—as they each fail to capitalise on their elite education. Their stories interlace to ask how we live authentically in a socioeconomic environment that appropriates the very notion of authenticity to clearly inauthentic ends. This open-ended thematic focus aligns with contemporary ‘post-postmodern’ or ‘New Sincerity’ fiction, which seeks a paradigm beyond the ‘narcissism, solipsism, irony and insincerity’ of a now-hegemonic postmodernism (Kelly 2010: 145)
that was definitely a very cool moment — i was a bit unsure if i had truly understood what “postmodernism” even meant but i think that was reasonable confirmation that i did, which lets me continue down the same line of reasoning to raise more cool questions!
fun questions
1. why is “postmodernism” a thing? like, is this really the first time that people were like, “oh what if we made the narrator unreliable” or “guys what if, and i know this is crazy since we’re writing fiction, maybe wrote something with no easy interpretation of objective reality or truth?” (the point i’m tryna make is, dude, it’s fiction, you can literally do whatever you want). like, we had to wait until modernism had become POST to think to do that??4
2. can i find some other examples or quotes of this new “new sincerity” / “post-post-modernism” movement that obviously subverts/challenges the postmodern hegemony as i finish reading? (spoiler: yes, and it’s SUPER on-the-nose in private citizens (thanks linda))
3. what comes after post-post-modernism?? post-post-POST-modernism? what the hell would that even look like?
4. and is this literally just how literature (or any art) works in general? and it seems so: apparently, this is the “Hegemonic Cycle”5: “Every literary movement starts as counter-hegemonic resistance to the previous dominant mode, then gradually becomes the new hegemony through institutional adoption, academic canonization, and cultural normalization.”
5. ok then if the hegemonic cycle is a thing, i should be able to create a timeline of human literature with the following data:
a. literary movement name
b. period (approximate dates)
c. region of the world
d. cultural hegemonic8,9 components:
i. hegemonic “claim” (i.e., what is the hegemony at the time)
ii. “axes of hegemony”6
iii. canonical hegemonic works that best illustrate the hegemony (should be able to defend the “hegemonic claim”)
iv. canonical counter-hegemonic works that best challenge the hegemony (joseph conrad’s heart of darkness vs. chinua achebe’s things fall apart is a great example of hegemonic vs. counterhegemonic works, especially since achebe literally wrote that as a “rebuttal”7 of conrad’s heart of darkness)
In response to Conrad's stereotypical depiction of Africans, Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart through the point of view of the natives to show Africans, not as primitives, but as members of a thriving society. Things Fall Apart follows Okonkwo's life as he strives for prestige in his community…
v. can we use this frankfurt theory critical theory jazz to maybe cook up a case for either a hegemonic endorsement or rejection along a different axis of hegemony? (for example, try to see how useful feminism is in some traditionally non-feminist literature?)
next steps
okay i think in the next post, i’ll just answer those 5 questions which effectively summarize what i learned from my chat with the ai
what do you expect to achieve at the end of this
dunno. i think a cool timeline or graph or visual would be nice. seeing things be plotted is satisfying. oh i also think a reproducible log of my work would be really cool/nice. like a lab notebook/journal/diary. that in and of itself tells some story that a future version of myself could preoccupy himself with if he ever gets bored. also i think this would help in sort of contextualizing/understanding why humans do the things they do, which i struggle to understand/relate to a lot sometimes. and i think i love humans so understanding more of them just makes my life easier.
why are you trusting the ai
i’m not. it has just given me some avenues to investigate and words to look up. academics love using big fancy academic words and i didn’t really know any of them until like yesterday but thanks to the ai, i have been able to figure out my unknown unknowns, at least to some degree.
Tulathimutte, T. (2016). Private citizens. First edition. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers.
Bingham, R., 2020. “The Disabled Body Under Surveillance Capitalism: Tony Tulathimutte’s Private Citizens.” C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings, 8(1): 4, pp. 1–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.1770
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/ok-i-need-you-to-explain-some-33VeZvhwQ3aiA6ILKEoiBQ
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/ok-i-need-you-to-explain-some-33VeZvhwQ3aiA6ILKEoiBQ#7
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/ok-i-need-you-to-explain-some-33VeZvhwQ3aiA6ILKEoiBQ#16