Suchergebnisse

A review essay on Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War at the Birth of the Modern Age (New York & London: Doubleday, 1990). Ecksteins studies how collective memories & feelings of past events shape present actions & acknowledged the connection between the arts & politics. Eksteins's contention that turn-of-the-century Germany represented the ideal modernist nation because it attempted to fashion a national identity that went beyond German history is explored. In addition, Eksteins's comparison of Germans' public celebrations in Berlin during the initial stages of WWI to the opening of Serge Diaghilev's ballet, The Rite of Spring, is discussed to illustrate how the German citizenry associated war conduct with liberation. It is contended that Eksteins's discussion of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean aptly demonstrates the decreased relevance that Europeans attached to history during the early 20th century. Moreover, Eksteins's contention that the condition of homelessness among Germans facilitated the rise of Nazism & assertion that Germans were attracted to, rather than forced into, the Nazi movement are examined. The modernist aspects of the Nazi movement are discussed, & the power of myth & imagination to shape present action is acknowledged. J. W. Parker

The Greek concept of history was intimately connected with their conception of nature. Their common denominator was the concept of immortality. At the beginning of the modern world, natural sci & history parted company when historical sci's clung to the ancient & medieval sci'fic & philosophical standards. The latest developments in the natural sci's have shown that again, nature & history have much in common. In the modern age their common denominator lies in the concept of process. This intimacy of nature & history is evident when it is seen that man is as capable of `making', or at least starting new natural processes as he is of `making' history. IPSA.

In the early 1920s, a type of postmodernism can be found in Pablo Picasso's & Arnold Schonberg's neoclassical works. Theodor W. Adorno's various attempts to cope with this phenomenon are discussed (eg, Aesthetic Theory, London, 1984). Although some elements of a postmodernist critique of modernism can be found in Adorno, he does not draw conclusions from his critique of modern composers for their infatuation with the material & lack of expression. Three different interpretations of the concept of postmodernism are proposed: (1) the antimodern interpretation that turns the waning of modernism into a pledge for a neoconservative academism; (2) the pluralistic interpretation that sees insight into the availability of different stocks of material as an indifferent eclecticism; & (3) a dialectical continuation of modernism, heir of aestheticist formalism & of the avant-garde protest against it, that pledges a resemanticization of art. Modified AA