The Aesthetics and Politics of Irony

After the tragedy of 9/11 in the West and the crisis of socialism in the East, the overriding ironic tone that had pervaded the 80s and 90s has begun to withdraw from the aesthetic and socio-political scenes. The last decades have witnessed an increasing celebration of affects and emotions, a return of authenticity and the real, and the birth of a “new sincerity”. This backlash against ironic alienation or “cynical reason” hopes to replace playfulness, shallowness and negativity for an ethos of commitment, sensitivity and integrity. Nevertheless, these attempts could easily turn out to be rhetorical or ironic. The present book seeks to address, on one hand, the impulse of and the resistance to irony in today’s artistic, cultural and political discourses and practices. On the other hand, given that ironic attitudes and expressions in late modernity are anticipated in German idealism, constituting as such a Romantic possibility, we welcome reflections on modern irony at large