The Off-Modern - (International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics) by Svetlana Boym (Paperback)

About the Book

"The Off-Modern charts a fresh path beyond the categories of modernism and postmodernism, center and periphery, artistic theory and practice"--

Book Synopsis

Svetlana Boym writes a new genealogy of modernity, moving beyond older debates between modernism and postmodernism to focus on the intersection of art, architecture, technology, and philosophy in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on theories of Georg Simmel, Henri Bergson, Aby Warburg, and Jacques Derrida, Boym presents the off-modern as an eccentric, self-questioning, anti-authoritarian perspective with roots in the Russian avant-garde, now developed in surprising ways by contemporary artists, architects, and curators around the world. She illustrates the off-modern in discussions of (and with) figures as diverse as architect Rem Koolhaas, Albanian artist-turned-mayor Edi Rama, an art collective in Delhi, and the creator of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Both a manifesto and a memoir, The Off-Modern often returns to themes of travel and immigration, exploring issues of diasporic intimacy and productive estrangement amid nostalgic landscapes of urban ruins.

Review Quotes

Published posthumously, this book is a bitter-sweet pleasure to read. It comes from the off it theorizes, giving us a new way of thinking about art and life. The off-modern recovers impulses of the modern, expands their multiple geographic and aesthetic imaginaries in the present and projects them into the future. But it refuses to be in sync, either with a canonized past and its avant-garde utopias or with the digital techno-merchants of our day. The off-modern is a contemporary artistic practice across the world and a deeply experienced way of life for the diasporic migrant.
Andreas Huyssen, Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, USA

This book will not fail to surprise readers of Svetlana Boym's previous work, followers of her passionate scepticism, her art of shadow play, her explorative character, and subtle philosophical drifts. Boym's posthumous oeuvre ranges meditatively over cultural history and the artistic genealogy of modernity; rich in concepts, gentle to the reader, yet this time with a more choreographic form of writing, oneiric phrasing, and a dream-like assemblage. Also, The Off-Modern is more direct, with a manifesto tone, and engages more deeply with analyses of artworks and art history.
European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

This delightful manifesto and memoir vividly captures Svetlana Boym's imaginative, passionate critical voice and creative endeavors. The Off-Modern dares to go off the beaten path to explore the side alleys of the modern project, celebrating the eccentric cultural productions that live off-center.
Giuliana Bruno, Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University, USA

About the Author

Svetlana Boym was a literary amd cultural theorist and critic, visual artist, writer of fiction, and Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, USA.