Intellectual Currents
This section focusses on the historical, sociological, philosophical, economic, political, and scientific context of modernism. Entries cover individuals, coteries, movements, and events. The primary criterion…
Search Results 1 - 25 of 226
Rationalism
Rationalism [Ratsionalizm] was a modernist movement in Soviet architecture that was current in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was led by the architect and…
Washington, Booker T. (1856–1915)
Born into slavery in Virginia, Booker Taliaferro Washington was the most prominent spokesman for Black Americans at the end of the 19th century. After attending…
Russell, Bertrand Arthur William (1872–1970)
Bertrand Russell, FRS, OM, and third earl Russell, was a mathematician, philosopher, social critic, political activist, writer, and Nobel laureate in literature. Russell was born…
Quantum Theory
Developed in the early 20th century, quantum theory is a branch of theoretical physics that concerns the unpredictable quality of particles at the quantum, or…
Alienation
From the Christian doctrine of original sin, through G. W. F. Hegel’s conception of freedom, and the situated subject of existentialist thought in the wake…
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889–1951)
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher whose work, largely on the philosophy of language, had far-reaching implications for modernist intellectual history and for…
Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove
The Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove is part of the story of Nigerian Modernism. Situated on the outskirts of the city of Osogbo in Southwest Nigeria,…
Populism
The most salient first use of the term populism and its cognates can be found in late 19th-century Tsarist Russia. The Russian peasant Narodniki [populists]…
Anti-Semitism including the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism, a term coined in Europe at the end of the 19th century, is the hatred of Jews and Jewishness, the latter being perceived in…
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900)
Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran minister, was a German philologist, philosopher, and iconoclast. He is best known for his controversial but powerful reevaluation…
Acéphale
The name Acéphale refers to two related projects: one is a journal, founded by Georges Bataille (1887–1962), published between 1936 and 1939, whose articles often…
Anarchism
Anarchism is a term derived from the Greek anarkhia, meaning “contrary to authority” or ”without a ruler.“ Anarchism narrowly refers to a theory of society…
Ouvroir de literature potentielle (Oulipo) [Workshop of potential literature]
Oulipo, Ouvroir de littérature potentielle [Workshop of potential literature] is a dynamic and even flamboyant group of writers, poets, and mathematicians who strive to elaborate…
Organicism
Modernist organicism emphasizes the interrelationship between the natural world and society, and links sociocultural changes with nature, biology, and aesthetic forms in imagining the human…
Bataille, Georges Albert Maurice Victor (1897–1962)
Georges Bataille (September 10, 1897–July 9, 1962) was a French writer who synthesized ideas from many disciplines. He converted to Catholicism at the start of…
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1895–1975)
Mikhail Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher and thinker whose long career concerned aesthetics, ethics, literary and cultural theory, linguistics, and sociology. His earliest works, in…
Santayana, George (1863–1952)
George Santayana—philosopher, poet, novelist, memoirist, and critic—was born in Madrid, the son and grandson of diplomats, and was brought to America by his mother in…
Nwoko, Demas (1935--)
Across the spectrum of fine art and design, Demas Nwanna Nwoko has made his mark as a central contributor to a neo-traditionalist philosophy at the…
Schapiro, Meyer (1904–1996)
Art historian Meyer Schapiro was born in Šiauliai [Shavley], Lithuania, on September 23, 1904, but soon immigrated to the United States with his family in…
Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905–1980)
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, left-wing political activist, playwright, and novelist. One of the leading French public intellectuals of the twentieth century, he was…
The Great War (1914–1918)
The Great War was fought from 1914 to 1918, and was officially ended in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles. Its primary locus was the…
Bloch, Ernst (July 8, 1885, Ludwigshafen - August 4, 1977, Tübingen)
Ernst Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher. Fleeing the Nazis in 1934, he lived in exile in Switzerland, France, Czechoslovakia, and the US. In 1949…
Little Magazines
In the history of modernism, little magazines were often the first venues to publish unknown authors who are now considered the leading lights of twentieth-century…
Al-Bustani, Butrus بطرس البستاني (1819–83)
Butrus Al-Bustani is known as the “father of the Arabic Renaissance” and was a leading pioneer of the Al-Nahda (النهضه) or cultural awakening. Al-Bustani sought…