Irony: Framing (post)modernity. 4th Graduate Conference in Culture Studies
Irony, either as a paradigmatic strategy of inquiry and critique or as a trait of character and existential perspective, has deeply informed Western culture and its philosophical and political tradition. The contemporary presence of irony in arts and everyday life – in the use of quotation, appropriation, pastiche, parody, kitsch, etc. – while questioning authenticity and authority, often conceals a lack of commitment that might be seen as a revival of the Jena romantics’ epistemological view, in some cases taken to a solipsistic extreme.