Abstract This article proposes liquid realism as a term to describe a critical stance that constitutes a metamodern methodology. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman’s liquid modernity, Mark Fisher’s hauntology, and Jacques Lacan’s conception of the real as structural lack, liquid realism reframes realism not as representational fidelity but as a practice of encounter with instability and absence. Set against both postmodern relativism and the metaphysical solidity sought by new realisms, liquid realism positions mourning rather than melancholia as the ethical stance adequate to a world shaped by precarity and cancelled futures. The article situates liquid realism within metamodern oscillation, articulating a realism that embraces fantasy, desire, and imagination as necessary mediations rather than exclusions. Through analyses of reactionary nostalgia and David Southwell’s Hookland as counter-folkloric practice, the article demonstrates how realism can resist the lure of restorative myth while cultivating reparative forms of critique. Liquid realism suggests a metamodern realism grounded in lack and capable of sustaining political, literary, and imaginative engagement under conditions of liquidity.
Robert Edgar (Thu,) studied this question.