Literary Studies and Post-Truth

Scholars of post-truth make a point of marking its origin in media discussion and establish that it garnered public attention officially in 2016, when Oxford Dictionaries named “post-truth” word of the year. And yet, despite the ritual consensus on its origin, the term “post-truth” remains shrouded in haziness. It is a semantically unstable term. At times, it hovers in the neighborhood of the phenomenon (something generally perceived and felt, whose existence is difficult to deny). At other times, it claims the authority of the concept: via the prefix “post,” an idea of truth shows up that is distinct from the accredited meaning of truth and purports to modify (even to overcome) the accredited meaning. This article suggests that the term "post-truth" and the phrase “the post-truth era” signal a rigidification of the sphere of public discourse, connects it with the epistemological crisis in the humanities, and argues that the best response to post-truth is a renewal of critique.