The Aesthetics of Collective Agency

Working across disciplinary divides, the volume explores the contemporary discourses that shape the forms and patterns of collective life in the future.

Twenty-first-century Western culture is characterized by profound transformations in its forms of collective organization. While traditional institutions of Western liberal democracies still wield significant political power, new forms of collective agency - most visible in progressive social protest movements, but also in the global rise of populism - have increasingly put pressure on established systems of collective organization. The contributors to this volume explore the social, political, and aesthetic forms that collective agency takes in the twenty-first century across a variety of media, including social platforms such as TikTok, multiplayer video games, and contemporary lyric poetry.

Auteur
Katharina Fackler teaches literary and cultural studies in the North American Studies Program at the University of Bonn.