Genre studies (genology) between fashion, boom twilight, and hope

The author of the present study deals with the contemporary state of literary genre studies (literary genology) as a discipline studying literary kinds and genres. Referring to his studies written during the period of 35 years he manifests the crisis of the discipline which moves nowadays between fashion, boom, twilight, and hope. For the present, even its name is being used in several countries only, and literary genres themselves more or less remained in the framework of poetics. Genre theory/genology – similarly as some other disciplines – is being invaded by new approaches, especially from the sphere of area studies, cultural anthropology and cultural studies, but even new technologies which gave birth to new genres need not mean the end of genology in the traditional sense of the word. It is being demonstrated that literary genres quite sensitively reflect social changes or even predict them. Genology/genre studies as an independent discipline si therefore necessary also from the social point of view, moreover from the axiological standpoint, as literary genres form a framework for the creation of aesthetic values. Its future consists in methodological plurality, flexibility and concentration on the modifications of literary genres under outer and inner impacts.