Csaba Horváth: Structures Seen from Above – Hungarian Literature in the Context of Epimodernism

We cordially invite you to the lecture by Dr. Csaba Horváth (University Károli of the Reformed Church in Hungary) “Structures Seen from Above – Hungarian Literature in the Context of Epimodernism.”

Lecture abstract:

Svetlana Boym wrote in 2010 : “Today postmodernism is dead and we are not yet nostalgic for it. There is something preposterous in our contemporary moment which we do not know how to describe.” Though the postmodern seems to be over, it is still not easy to make a general statement neither about this cultural phenomena nor about their end.

Epimodernism has been founded by Emmanuel Bouju, professor of comparative literature of the New Sorbonne – Paris 3. His theory does not simply attempt to define the post-postmodern literature but this approach is trying to see the triple of modernism, postmodernism and post-postmodernism as a mixture of ruptures and continuities. Its focus is put on the meta-historical value of narrative experience, the political consistency and ethical turn of art, the phantom pain of History, and self-representations as alternate stories of ironical testimony.

The lecture has two aims: First, to show the six epimodern values of Bouju and to highlight the importance of the perspective of “epi” – from above; second, to link some contemporary Hungarian novels to the epimodern theory. György Dragomán’s White King (2005), Attila Bartis’ Tranquility (2001) and Krisztina Tóth’s Pixel (2011) strongly take part in the same literary process that can be seen in the case of Sofi Oksanen, Katerina Tuckova, Olga Tokarczuk or Jonathan Franzen.