Speaker
Description
This paper examines the literary and ethical implications of what can be described as the crisis of postmodern irony, a cultural and aesthetic condition wherein irony, once a tool of critique, has become exhausted, depoliticized, and incapable of sustaining affective or ethical engagement. Against this backdrop, the essay situates Zadie Smith’s On Beauty (2005) as a paradigmatic instance of the emerging ethos of new sincerity, a literary mode defined by affective openness, ethical attentiveness, and the courage to risk earnestness in the face of cultural, ideological, and moral crises. Drawing on David Foster Wallace’s articulation of sincerity as a post-postmodern imperative, the paper argues that On Beauty enacts a deliberate reorientation of irony: no longer an end in itself, irony is subordinated to relational truth, emotional authenticity, and ethical responsibility. The novel’s movement beyond the ironic multicultural pastiche of White Teeth foregrounds vulnerability, care, and beauty as irreducible values, articulated through the intimate crises of the Belsey family, including grief, infidelity, and generational tension. While the narrative employs satire and intertextual dialogue with Forster’s Howards End, its ethical and emotional centre insists on sincerity as indispensable: in Kiki’s grief and generosity, in Carlene’s quiet acts of care, and in the fragile yet profound connections that traverse racial, ideological, and generational divides. Reading On Beauty through the lens of new sincerity, this paper contends, reveals Smith’s literary project as an ethically attuned and affectively courageous response to the crises of contemporary culture—a work that affirms relationality, aesthetic value, and emotional truth against the narcotic cynicism of late-capitalist society.
| Keywords | Zadie Smith, On Beauty, postmodern irony, The Ethos of New Sincerity |
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| galbayrak85@gmail.com |