Heart of Darkness, pages 165565

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Heart of Darkness, pages 1655-65

• Type one perfect paragraph expressing the main
  idea of assigned reading.
• Sentence One should express the main idea of the
  assigned reading
• Subsequent sentences should defend your position
• Three examples, quotations, and comments
• Total number of sentences should be at least 12.
• Write paragraphs in Secure-exam . . . Do not
  exit until told to do so . . .

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Heart of Darkness Quiz (Part II)

• Wednesday, March 14
• Content
• Heart of Darkness, mainly part II
• Modernism Lecture notes
• Sartres Existentialism (Yellow Sheet)
• Two short hand-written essay (you will prepare
  a 3x5 note card with quotations)
• Discuss how Africa and Africans are depicted by
  Marlow in the novel Heart of Darkness. Are the
  depictions racist or not?
• Discuss the concepts of violence and cruelty in
  the novel. Offer specific examples and explain
  why the concepts are used ironically in the
  novel.

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Introduction to Concepts of Modernism

• The Word "Modern" comes from the latin word
  "MODO
• Modo means "Just Now
• Humans have thought of themselves as "modern" for
  centuries
• 20th Century Modernism has particular innovations

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Whats Modern? The Shock of the Old

• Around 1127, the Abbot Suger began reconstructing
  his abbey basilica of St. Denis in Paris.
• The look was neither classically Greek nor Roman
  but new

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The Classically Greek

• Notice the Rational approach to Architecture
• Columns suggest simplicity, elegance, strength,
  and symmetry

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St. Denis and Opus Modernum

• Suger referred to the new work in Latin, as Opus
  Modernum, meaning A Modern Work
• Style later became known as Gothic
• Notice Flying Buttresses for support and tall
  Spires

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Renaissance Response to the Gothic or Modern

• The Ideal Style of Renaissance architects and
  artists was, again, classical Greek
• Gothic was a term of abuse, meaning a northern
  or German Barbaric Style
• Greek, they said, was antica e buona maniera
  moderna
• (The ancient and good modern style)
• Symmetry, Geometry, Stability

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The Term Modern in the 20th century

• The Problem with the Term Modern is
• Man has always viewed himself as modern
• The Term means just now (the moment of the
  present)
• What is 20th century Modernism

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The Twentieth CenturyModernisms and Modernity

• Most Unique characteristic of Twentieth
  Century Modernism
• Inquires how we know what we know
• FOCUS ON EPISTEMOLGY

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What is Modernism

• Like the Enlightenment
• Modernism employed the tools of REASON and
  SCIENTIFIC investigation
• Like the Enlightenment
• Modernism uncovered structures of Natural
  Universe (How stuff works)

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Central Image of ModernismAssembly line

• Rational Dissection of Labor (how stuff works)
• Is a scientific dissection of labor (mechanical
  processes)

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Modernisms departure from the Enlightenment

• Unlike Enlightenment
• Modernism also confronted the possibility that
  knowledge was not fixed or stable.
• Enlightenment rationality sought eternal Truths
  (see Newton)
• Modernism suggests Knowledge depends upon
  perspective
• Perspective necessarily suggests difference
  and subjectivity
• subjectivity rejects Objective, Purely
  Empirical, Universal Absolutes

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How does Assembly Line reflect Modernism in Art?

• An object, seen from various points of view,
  could be reconstructed using particular separate
  "views" which overlapped and intersected
  Cubism in a nutshell

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BIG IDEA!

• Modernism as Cultural idea is the logical
  extension of the Enlightenment
• Assembly Line Production
• Modern Advances in Technology (car, plane,
  telephone)
• Modernism as Philosophical and Artistic Concept
  rejects Enlightenment notion of Objectivity

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What do these statements mean?

• Modernity is a philosophical interrogation of
  what it means to have a perspective
• Writers and Artists strive to express this
  uncertainty
• Well . . . Paul Cezanne!

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Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

• Paul Cezzanne essentially started modern
  painting
• Did not entirely scrap realism
• Cezanne wanted to paint not reality but the
  effect of perceiving it.

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Paul Cezanne

• Cezanne suggested uncertainty in viewing
• A tree changes as my gaze changes
• Cezanne sought to simplify perception, saying
  painters should treat nature like the cylinder,
  the sphere, the cone
• Cezanne introduces the notion of nature being
  reducible to geometrical basics

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Braque, Georges The Fruitdish

• Figure to Left Realistic depiction of
  still-life
• Figure to Right Modern depiction of still-life

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Modern Art The Basics

• Art that does not pretend to mirror the world
  (mimesis)
• Does not aim at representing Truth as it exists
  outside the book or mind (verisimilitude)
• Aims at depicting the Experience of Living in a
  faster, more information based 20th century
• Aims at revealing how the world is Created from
  several perspectives/truths/points of view

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Painting vs. Mass Production

• Often argued, invention of photography made
  painting obsolete
• Mass production (photography) replaced
  hand-crafted originality (painting)
• Digital Photos makes the issue even more clear .
  . . Endless perfect reproductions

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Modernism vs. Modernity

• Modernity means
• Mass produced Goods
• Assembly line
• New Modes of Transport
• auto-mobile, airplane, underground train
• New media
• Film, photography, telephone, tape-recorder

• Effect of Modernity
• Ready made and in-expensive goods
• Rise of Consumerism (choice)
• New concept of Space / Time
• kaleidoscopic collage of sights
• Loss of idea of separate spaces / Fragmentation
• New methods for reproducing reality

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Modernisms response to Modernity

• -- Tries to create new visions of reality
  (experience of modernity)
• Tries to capture the Essence of Thought and
  ReasonStream of consciousnessdiscontinuous
  thought
• Inserts Unreliable narrators in the place of
  omniscient narrators

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The First Truly Modernist Painting (1907)

• Picassos Les Demoissels d Auvignon
• Prostitutes with African Masks
• Cubist Style
• Fear of Syphilis
• Anti-representational
• Representation Art deemed Obsolete
• Naturalistic Themes (Primitive)

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19th Century Beliefs

• Developments in science encouraged people to
  believe they would conquer all secrets of
  Universe
• Faith in Progress and Rational solutions to
  all problems
• Belief that Technology would Serve humanity,
  not Master it.

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Crucial 19th Century Thinkers

• Charles Darwin (1809 1882)
• Examined the evolution of species according to
  Material Evidence
• Did not refer to Divine Laws or Purpose
• Suggested Natural Laws such as Natural
  Selection

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Crucial 19th Century Thinkers

• Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
• Father of Positivism and Sociology
• Important figure in concept of Social Darwinism
• colonized people were less evolved, colonizing
  people were more evolved.
• Cultural Difference / Perspective was not a
  consideration
• Twentieth Century Thought Observes Bias in
  so-called Scientific rationality.

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Crucial 19th Century Thinkers

• Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Created a scientific view of History
• Believed all History moved in Economic stages
• Feudalism
• Capitalism
• Socialism
• Communism
• Viewed Modern Workers as Alienated cogs in
  great industrialized machine
• Workers no longer owned their labor
• Wages and loss of craft

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Crucial 19th Century Thinkers

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
• Strong opponent of Positivism
• Focused on the Individual, not Society
• Advocated Ubermensch
• Superhuman being who refuses notions of Social or
  Scientific Law
• Rejects Christianity, Faith in Science, and
  Loyalty to the State
• Focuses on Complete Freedom in a world which
  lacks transcendental law

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Summary Questions

• Why would Nietzsche be influential to twentieth
  century modernism?
• How was Comte influenced by Darwin?
• How was Nietzsche perhaps influenced by Darwin?
• What is the distinguishing characteristic of
  modernism?
• How does Braques The Fruitdish illustrate
  modernisms concern with Perspective and its loss
  of faith in Stable Knowledge?