Automodernity

There's yet another take on the world after postmodernity/the culture after postmodernism. After digimodernism, performatism, complexism, hypermodernity and the altermodern comes... automodernity. Robert Samuels has just published New Media, Cultural Studies, and Critical Theory after Postmodernism: Automodernity from Zizek to Laclau . Obviously I haven't read it yet; Amazon has this to say about it:

This book argues that we have moved into a new cultural period, automodernity, which represents a social, psychological, and technological reaction to postmodernity. In fact, by showing how individual autonomy is now being generated through technological and cultural automation, Samuels posits that we must rethink modernity and postmodernity. Part of this rethinking entails stressing how the progressive political aspects of postmodernism need to be separated from the aesthetic consumption of differences in automoderntiy. Choosing culturally relevant studies of The Matrix, Grand Theft Auto, Eminem and Jurassic Park, he interprets these medias through the lens of eminent theorists like Slavoj Zizek, Frederic Jameson, and Henry Jenkins. Ultimately, he argues that what defines postmodernity is the stress on social construction, secular humanism, and progressive social movements that challenge the universality and neutrality of modern reason.


Another one for the reading pile, I think.