Lecture 5: Raoul Eshelmann on Performatism
WHAT IS PERFORMATISM?
Performatism is an epochal concept of post-postmodernism. I proposed it in 2000, first in a German-language article in the Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, then in an English translation in Anthropoetics. A book version, Performatism, or the End of Postmodernism, appeared in 2008. You can also find a brief practical introduction to interpreting performatist narrative in Blog Post No. 3, "The Performatist Challenge" as well as exemplary analyses in the Interpretations section.
Performatism is an across-the-board cultural reaction to postmodernism that began sometime in the mid-1990s. It may best be described as an epochal development that replaces postmodern irony and skepticism with artistically mediated belief and the experience of transcendence. This does not mean that organized religion or esoteric belief systems are making a comeback. What performatism does mean is that secular works of art, literature, film etc. are using formal means to force us to believe in and identify with positive values like love, beauty, reconciliation, and transcendence. This tension between believing in positive values and the not-quite-voluntary means used to transmit them give performatism its special feel.
About Raoul Eshelman
I'm a Slavist teaching at the Ludwigs-Maximilian University in Munich. I've lived in Germany for over 35 years, though I remain an American citizen. I originally attended Rutgers University (New Brunswick) where I studied Political Science and German with a bit of Slavics thrown in. I spent my Junior Year Abroad in Konstanz, which I liked so much that I went back for an M.A. in Slavics. The rest of my academic career (with short stints in Rutgers Newark and Berkeley) has taken place in Germany. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. in Slavic Literature from Konstanz and did my Habilitation (the German equivalent of the "second book") in Hamburg. I've been teaching on a permanent basis in the Slavic Dept. in Munich since 2009. As of the late 1990s I became more and more interested in comparative literature and film studies; I also dabble in art, art photography, and architecture. My scholarship is now evenly divided between Russian, Czech and Comparative Literature, with the focus mainly on performatism, an epochal concept of post-postmodernism.
