Post-Weird

Post-Weird: Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the Mainstream is an ambitious look at how communities form when old forms of authority and meaning seem to be collapsing around us. This book goes beyond the fraying of contemporary American culture to ask how communities that used to be considered “fringe,” for better or worse, come together. Dr. Matheson examines far-flung groups from Appalachian serpent-handling churches to Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists, pro-anorexia Internet forums to reactionary pseudoscientists, finding consistent parallels amidst their diversity. The key trend he identifies is anti-rhetorical discourse: the insistence that the symbols shared by each community represent a hidden truth that cannot be questioned or interpreted but is revealed through signs—words, images, videos, and texts. Against these rigid worldviews, Dr. Matheson calls for a revival of the art of rhetoric, not just as a set of techniques, but as a creative, curious orientation towards the world in all of its ambiguity and uncertainty.

Calum Lister Matheson is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh and faculty at the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the author of Desiring the Bomb: Communication, Psychoanalysis, and the Atomic Age (2019).