Svetlana Boym writes a new genealogy of modernity, moving beyond older debates between modernism and postmodernism to focus on the intersection of art, architecture, technology, and philosophy in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on theories of Georg Simmel, Henri Bergson, Aby Warburg, and Jacques Derrida, Boym presents the off-modern as an eccentric, self-questioning, anti-authoritarian perspective with roots in the Russian avant-garde, now developed in surprising ways by contemporary artists, architects, and curators around the world. She illustrates the off-modern in discussions of (and with) figures as diverse as architect Rem Koolhaas, Albanian artist-turned-mayor Edi Rama, an art collective in Delhi, and the creator of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Both a manifesto and a memoir, The Off-Modern often returns to themes of travel and immigration, exploring issues of diasporic intimacy and productive estrangement amid nostalgic landscapes of urban ruins.

AAP 2020-2021

Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction (Tamar Abramov, Koc University, Turkey; Giuliana Bruno, Harvard University, USA; David Damrosch, Harvard University, USA) -- 1. History Out-of-Sync -- 2. Cultural Exaptation -- 3. Human Error -- 4. Nostalgic Technologies -- 5. Digital Resident Aliens -- 6. Edgy Geography -- 7. Archive of Pentimenti -- 8. Perspectivism -- 9. Prospective Nostalgia -- 10. Ruinophilia -- 11. Off-Modern Urbanism -- 12. Embarrassing Monumentality -- 13. Tact and Touch -- 14. Diasporic Intimacy -- 15. Immigrant Arts -- 14. Alternative Solidarities and Feminine Friendships -- 17. Estrangement for the World -- 18. Defamiliarized Human -- 19. Squiggles, Spirals, and Serpentine Dances -- 20. The Off-Modern Museum -- 21. Hypertextual Design and Essayistic Drift -- 22. On Off -- Practices -- Unforeseen Homecoming -- Phantasmagorias of History -- Turning the Page on the Avant-Garde -- Hybrid Utopias -- Global Transits and Portable Homes -- Postindustrial Art Nouveau: Tirana Arabesques 2010 -- Multitasking with Clouds -- Airport Ruins -- Hydrant Immigrants -- Not Working -- Black Mirrors -- Notes.

"The Off-Modern charts a fresh path beyond the categories of modernism and postmodernism, center and periphery, artistic theory and practice"-- Provided by publisher.