Metamodernism—Swinging between Modernism and Postmodernism:One of the Post-postmodern Trends of Western Literary Theories

Since the 1990s,postmodern theories have been on the wane and gradually giving way to new theories that came after them.Metamodernism,proposed by Vermeulen and Akker,is one of the representatives of the latest trends.Keeping a close eye on the development of contemporary arts,the two Dutch scholars argue that Metamodernism,taking both aesthetics and ethics into its account,is becoming the dominant cultural paradigm today.Being free from both the epistemological bias of modernism and the ontological nihilism of postmodernism,Metamodernism is a theory that swings between modernism and postmodernism,but the swinging is a dynamic process of coordination rather than a state of indeterminacy between the two.Though far from being full-fledged,Metamodernism deserves further research as an important representative of post-postmodern theories.