David Riedel, “Nonfiction’s ‘Meta’ Moment” (Page Views, Columbia Journalism Review blog, May 23, 2012)
The word “meta” has become an inescapable part of the pop culture zeitgeist. In early May, the Boston Globe published a column by Ben Zimmer about the word’s seeming omnipresence. Zimmer also appeared on NPR to discuss it, saying, “The way [meta] gets used now really refers to anything that is self referential, self parodying in some way in this kind of recursive fashion.”
In its original usage, Zimmer writes, meta means “‘above or beyond’ (the metaphysical realm is beyond the physical one) or ‘at a higher level of abstraction.’” Metawritings: Toward a Theory of Nonfiction falls into the latter camp.
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