Afterword: American Modernity and Antimodernity, Then and Now

Abstract: This response situates the essays in this issue within the broader framework of American antimodernism or modernity critique, as articulated by T. J. Jackson Lears. It argues that this framework remains as salient to present-day political and cultural conflicts as to the writings of the 1890s. Further, noting the essays’ emphasis on the multifarious genres, exceeding realism, within this period’s writings, it argues that debates about the status of modernity often play out therein in the form of tensions between generic modes. The piece goes on to suggest that political rhetoric within today’s Americanist criticism shares some romantic—that is, antimodern and mythmaking—proclivities with the contemporary right; thus, despite their deeply meaningful divergences, themes such as antistatism can subtend the two sides. In contrast, the generically heterogeneous novels discussed here are able to raise questions about modernity’s dangers from a point of view less wedded to its idealized overcoming.