Lecture 'The End of the Age of Irony'

This presentation will explore the notion of irony, its mechanisms and its history. Irony is something that makes the sense waver, something that seeks undermines everything, from the self-identity of subjects to the foundations of logic.

The object of scrutiny will be the notorious postmodern irony in art and culture – the age of remakes, replicas, playful repetition, masks, simulacra and echoes.

The aim of the presentation is to pinpoint a diagnosis of this present political and cultural moment, using as an entry point the decline of the capacity of irony. Following the Covid crisis, impending ecological disaster and the rise of anti-democratic populisms, said capacity of irony seems to have given way to raw affects of depression and rage.

Prof Dolar will argue that we must introduce a new sense of irony, despite the inherent ambivalence that has accompanied this term throughout its long history.