ABSTRACT
The conclusion highlights the most important points of the book and points to the lasting effect of twentieth-century literary uncertainty on narrative and theory. It describes uncertainty as a defining feature of postmodernist literature and sheds light on the prevalence of undecidability in contemporary literature, e.g., in the trend in life-writing of blending fiction and autobiography (autofiction, autotheory, etc.) which use undecidability even as they oppose postmodernism and attempt to define new concepts of truth. This final section also further relates the notion of undecidability to contemporary culture, arguing that with new notions of fact and credibility emerging in an era where the idea of ‘post-truth’ is predominant, it is critical to distinguish undecidability in literature from other more cynical forms of uncertainty such as ‘fake news’. It also points to the relevance of undecidability in the study of meaning and interpretation in a broad sense: the subject of the book obviously has traction in other media, including visual arts, film, performance and other disciplines, including philosophy, critical theory and cultural studies. The book thus intends to open a broader discussion, especially on a general study of the theory of uncertainty in related fields.
