Modernism, Postmodernism and the Nature of the Times: A Conversation with Randall Stevenson

Abstract The interview offers a comprehensive, paradigmatic overview of the experience of literary modes within the broad frameworks of modernity and postmodernity. It invites reflection and rethinking of epistemic change from a major literary historian and theorist whose work in the Anglo-American context has become synonymous with the examination of temporality, historicity, and poeticality in twentieth century experimentation with form. Revisiting central concepts and aesthetic categories in literary criticism and theory, Randall Stevenson contributes a highly contemporary, ground-breaking vision of the literary act against the backdrop of the new structures of knowledge pertaining to the digital age and the post-humanist crisis.