Awkwardness – An Essay
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Awkwardness has been one of the defining traits of the awkwardly unnamed first decade of our young century, dominating comedy on both the big and small screens. Could this trend point toward something deeper? In Awkwardness, Adam Kotsko answers that question with a resounding yes. Drawing on key insights of cultural theory, he argues that awkwardness is a structuring principle of human experience, something that the particular conditions of our time allow us to see with greater clarity than ever before. In an analysis that begins with the difference between the US and UK versions of Ricky Gervais's The Office, passes through the films of Judd Apatow, and culminates in the apotheosis of awkwardness, Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, Kotsko looks at the ways we cope with our awkwardness and the unexpected opportunities awkwardness opens up when we stop resisting it and learn to enjoy it.
Adam Kotsko is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College, Chicago. He is the author of Zizek and Theology (2008), Politics of Redemption (2010), and Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television (2012). He is the translator of Agamben's The Sacrament of Language (2010), The Highest Poverty (2013), Opus Dei (2013), Pilate and Jesus (forthcoming) and The Use of Bodies (forthcoming). He blogs at An und fur sich (itself.wordpress.com).