Existentialism, Modernism and PostModernism

Definitions | Visual Illustrations | Explanatory Links | Comparison/Contrasts

My Definitions of Modernism, Existentialism, and PostModernism

Modernism

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
-- William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming "

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins"
-- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

These two quotations have always epitomized Modernism to me.



I see Modernsim as a reaction to a number of discontinuities suffered at the end of the nineteeth century-- crucial disruptions in conventional ways of thinking that threw old explanations, moral systems, and deologies into question and required the creation of new ideas of order. These new forms of order were typically more individualistic, more relativistic, more abstract, and more techological than previous ways of thinking.

METAPHYSICAL DISCONTINUITIES
• questioning of literal interpretation of the Bible
• historical research into the life of Christ and the historical accuracy of the Gospels
• mechanisms of evolution suggest that nature is not benign but "red in tooth and claw" -- that existence is a struggle for survival
• evidence from biology and geology suggests that earth is much older than previously thought and that species were not created individually, at one time

These discontinuities reform methods of reading the Bible, promoting metaphorical interpretation of the Bible as a source of moral truths. There is also a rise in interest in other religions and cultures, particularly arcane or primitive ones: if our religious teachings can be understood metaphorically, why can't theirs?
EPSITEMOLOGICAL DISCONTINUITIES
• Kant and post-Kantians -- recognition that perception is mediated by subjective categories of knowing

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND AXIOLOGICAL DISCONTINUITIES
• Freud -- existence of the unconscious suggests that personality is not unitary and under control

SOCIAL DISCONTINUITIES
• Marx-- recognition of class diferences, existentce of exploitation and class warfare
• Shrinkage of family to nuclear unit because of industrialisation and increasing mobility
• Separation of gender roles because of industrialisation leaves women responsible for subsistence tasks while men go out into public world to make money
• Alienation -- capitalism and mass production methods increasingly reduce individual worker to cog in the industrial machine

AESTHETIC AND RHETORICAL DISCONTINUITIES
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Visual Illustrations

• Museum of Modern Art: Paintings -- Examples of Modernist art

• Links to Postmodern Art

Explanatory Links

• Basic Themes of Existentialism
• The Realm of Existentialism - Contains entries on Basic Themes and Central Problems as well as quotations from Existentialist thinkers
• Existentialism: An Introduction
• The Existentialism Page

• POSTMODERNISM AND ITS CRITICS -- Website for a Social Anthopology Course with some basic definitions and lists of figures
• ARTICLE ON POSTMODERNISM AND ART EDUCATION

• Our Postmodern Life -- Site explaining various aspects of PoMo experience

  
  
  
  
  
  

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Comparison/ Contrasts of Modernism and Postmodernism

• Modernism and the Modern Novel
• 
  
• Postmodernism and the Postmodern Novel

• Quantum Mechanics and Divine Action -- an explanation of Modernism and Postmodernism in terms of developments in contemporary Physics

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sparks@hubcap.clemson.edu

Last update: 7/27/03 by James Romesburg