New Frontiers in Memory Studies: Jan Alber (Gießen) on Post-Postmodernist Literature (Jan 22)

The Ethical Ramifications of Post-Postmodernist Fictions of the Digital

Jan Alber (Gießen)

January 22, 2026, 4pm 
Campus Westend, NG 731

Download the poster here. 

In this lecture, I will look at the ethical ramifications of post-postmodernist fictions of the digital (PPFDs), i.e., multimodal and transmedial novels of the twenty-first century. More specifically, I will investigate the narrative strategies of two PPFDs – namely Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2012) and Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water (2012) – as paradigmatic examples of what has previously been called the “self-reflexive ethics” (Alber and Bell 2019: 133) of post-postmodernist fiction. 

Watch the video recording our event page.