Modernism in the Middle East and Arab World
Exploring modernity and its intellectual trends in the Middle East is a very fitting endeavour, as ‘Middle East’ itself is a ‘modern’ term which has…
Search Results 1 - 25 of 186
Modernism in East Asia
The term ‘modernism’ is commonly used to describe some of the literary and cultural production of the early twentieth century in China, Japan, and Korea,…
Expressionism
Expressionism was one of the foremost modernist movements to emerge in Europe in the early years of the twentieth-century. It had a profound effect on…
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…
Modernism in Europe
We are living in a very singular moment of history. It is a moment of crisis, in the literal sense of that word. In every…
Bauhaus
In 1919 a young architect named Walter Gropius initiated one of the most modern art schools of the twentieth century in the city of Weimar…
Social Realism
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism was a movement initiated by a group of loosely affiliated artists that came together during the early 1940s, primarily in New York City.…
Photography
Constructivism
Prior to World War II, Constructivism attracted little interest from British artists apart from the few involved with Circle in 1937. Circle consisted of a…
Futurism
Futurism emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century as a movement that explicitly conceptualized the process of literary and artistic experimentation as part of…
Shinpa
Shinpa, the shortened version of the Japanese word shinpageki, or new school drama, was an early Japanese attempt at reforming the theater along modernist lines.…
Engeki Kairyō Kai
Engeki Kairyō Kai [Theater Reform Society] was a quasi-government agency and a forerunner of the modernist movement in Japanese theater. From its early days, the…
Katsureki-mono
“Living history” plays were historical kabuki plays produced during the Meiji period 10s and 20s (1868–1888) in an attempt to reform the practices associated with…
Performance Art in China
Performance art events began in China in the 1980s following Deng Xioping’s post-Mao economic reforms in 1979, which exposed Chinese socialist society to foreign investments…
Al-Tahtawi, Rifa’a (1801–1873)
Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi was an Egyptian reformer and thinker who is widely recognised as the pioneer of the Egyptian ‘Awakening’ (nahda) in the 19th century.…
Webb, Beatrice (1858–1943) and Sidney (1859–1947)
Beatrice and Sidney Webb were leading intellectual advocates of socialist reform in England. Beatrice Webb (née Potter) was born into a wealthy family, but her…
Zangirimono [Cropped-hair Plays]
In Meiji-era Japan, as part of the reforms to kabuki in response to modernization, playwright Kawatake Mokuami (1816–1893) and actor Onoe Kikugorō V (1844–1903) developed…
Shelem Yankev Abramovitsh 1835–1917
Above, Shelem Yankev Abramovitsh (1835–1917), commonly known by his literary persona Mendele Moykher-Sforim (Mendele the Book Peddler), is considered to be the founding father of…
Monte Verità (1900–)
During the first two decades of the 20th century, Monte Verità, a hill on the west side of Ascona in southern Switzerland, was the site…
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…
‘Abduh, Muhammad (1849–1905)
Muhammad ‘Abduh along with Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani (1838–1897) are widely considered as the co-founders of Muslim modernism, mainly in, though not confined to, Sunni Islam.…
Valparaíso School (1952--)
The term “Valparaíso School” is often applied to the school of architecture, design, and arts of the Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile, in specific relation…
Afrocubanismo in Music
Afrocubanismo was an esthetic trend in art music during the first half of the twentieth century focusing on African cultural features in Cuban society. The…
Delsarte, François (1811–1871)
A performer and teacher of voice and movement, François Delsarte developed a theory of expression that influenced modern dance, actor training, poetic recitation, silent film,…