Short-span temporalities in contemporary literary studies

Abstract

In recent literary studies, the themes and figures of the ephemeral may be found mainly in two domains: within the framework of literary sociology (in order to capture the writer’s identity during a time of medialization and performance derived from what Nathalie Heinich calls “a regime of visibility” ), and within a hermeneutic of gestures (in order to describe the tiny moments of engagement of either an attitude or a posture in documentary/ fiction writings). The question raised in the present essay is how the two series of values specific for “the short-span culture” can be articulated in literature and what their ethic and aesthetic implications might be.