(Da li je bolje) nemati nego ih imati (previše): gdje su i čime se bave književne teorije danas?
(Is it Better) to Have or to Have Not (Too Many): Where are and What Literary Theories are doing Today?

Summary/Abstract: Since numerous critical and academic discussions about a particular “resistance to theory” in deliberating on literary, and, in general, overall artistic and cultural production emerged in the last quarter of 20th century, a certain amount of boredom and burnout in this rather dynamic process on all sides took place. The paper tries to present the status and condition of “Post-Theory” in the 1990s and in the first two decades of 21st century. Diverse proposals have been identified in view of some major prefixes, such as post- that are linked to Post-postmodernism, Post-Irony, Post-postrealism, Post-Critique, or a few others in combination with ‘modernism’, such as Altermodernism, Digimodernism, Metamodernism; or specific labels such as Heterolinationalism and Performatism. These newly suggested concepts have been presented with the necessary caution about their practical use in dealing with ether literary works from previous times, or the most recent ones that had emerged in the English-speaking parts of the contemporary world in the last half a century. The absence of any dominant or even prevailing theory, or the multitude that should not be confused with a plurality of views, can be considered in this period under observation, as well as understood as a rather vibrant scope of academic and critical activities in the application of the wide spectrum of already established theoretical concepts within the heavily changed landscape of a number of disciplines within the Humanities. Instead of any meaningful conclusion, it can be affirmed that the role and position of both Literature or Literary Studies in regard to theoretical and critical considerations today ought to be redefined in the age of globalisation processes that had without doubt undermined previous types of comparable evaluations. They indicate a dire need to find the way out of the current cul-de-sac that “the Age of Post-Theory” had found itself to be locked down into, and to find out soon some appropriate theoretical patterns in both the research and evaluation praxis that could be applied on diverse forms of oral, written and electronic / virtual literary works.

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