Student Introduction

Interview, in groups of three, one of your classmates and prepare to report the following information to the rest of the class:

Course goals for 20th-Century Civilization I / The Modern Experiment

- What are the common experiences of modernity?


- How do different mediums and genres (political manifesto, drama, nonfiction prose, novel, poetry, music, as well as film, painting, and other visual mediums) come to inform modernity?

- How is Modernism revolutionary?

- Seminar for first-year Honors students


- Introduction to interdisciplinary research methodologies (history, literature, psychology, philosophy, and political science)


- Query of the origins of modern disciplines like history, literature, psychology, philosophy, and political science (the “liberal arts”)

Unit I—19th-century Revolutions: Marx/Engels, Lenin/Trotsky, and Freud/Jung

Unit II: Modernist Families--Kafka and Brecht

Unit III--The Great War and its Aftermath: Existentialism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and Fascism


What are disciplines?

1. Discipline is defined as membership to a select community; a history of training; a culture of rules, order, and regulation; and of course restraint.


2. Academic disciplines up to 1900: theology, law, and medicine

What is modernity? 

- Etymology: Late Latin modernus, from Latin modo (just now), from modus (measure)


- 1900-1939 (before WWII)


- Modernism: self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression


- IN CLASS WRITING: What is modern about the early 21st century? What cultural objects and practices define modernity now?


1. "Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure." -- Paul De Man (1919–1983), Belgian-born U.S. literary critic.


2. “'Modernity' signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal and the immutable." Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), French poet, critic.


3. "By Modernism I mean the positive rejection of the past and the blind belief in the process of change, in novelty for its own sake, in the idea that progress through time equates with cultural progress; in the cult of individuality, originality and self-expression." -- Dan Cruickshank (b. 1949), British architectural critic.


Review of L. 2

Communism = Economic system whereby the means of production are owned collectively


Capitalism = Economic system whereby the means of production are owned privately


Bourgeoisie = Class that came to power after the French and then the Industrial Revolutions gave it control over the means of production 


Gender and Communism


- Acc. To Marx and Engels, the bourgeois family is an economic unit
- Families perpetuate bourgeois private property
- Marriage = a kind of prostitution
- So-called “Free love”

Areas of Interpretation in Marxism


- Differences between Socialism and Communism
- How do Marx and Engels envision the Capitalist state?
- Does The Communist Manifesto advocate use of force/violence?
- What aspects of the Communist state

Marx and Engels as Writers/Authors


- Prone to hyperbole and colorful imagery
- Rhetorical (argue with potential opponents of Communism)

Dialectical materialism: 


Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis

Dialectical thought assumes that everything in nature has its opposite (i.e., life/death).

A dialectical view of history interprets the clash of antithetical historical forces (i.e., the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie) as anterior to achieving social progress.

Materialism = the opposite of idealism

Materialist thinkers (in contrasts to idealists) prioritize economic forces (ownership of the means of production) and social relations (inextricable power dynamics like gender).

In dialectical materialism, the mind/consciousness is an epiphenomenon (copy, reflection, photograph) of matter.


Review of L. 4


What is the Marxist revolution?


- upheaval  of old ways of thinking

- call for people to unite together to achieve economic equality

- break in the cycle of poverty

- disbanding bourgeoisie and private property

- collectivization of the means of production


Pros of Communism/Marxism


- Everyone is equal

- No class division

- Shared property

- Free education

- No oppression

- No religious conflict


Cons of Communism/Marxism


- Everyone is equal

- Individuality is not welcomed

- No private property

- Restricted career opportunities

- Pressures of communal living

- Suppression of religion


Why does Marx castigate religion as the opium of the people?


- Religious reality distracts from material reality

- Religion attempts to distract the masses from the need to organize and rise up against worldly oppressors

- Religion may promote individuality

- Religion includes hierarchy

- Political reality of 19th-century Europe: religion part of feudal and bourgeois order


Use-value is the qualitative aspect of value, i.e., the concrete way in which a thing meets human needs:


Fetishism, in ancient religions, meant the belief that inanimate objects such as icons or trees, clouds, etc., possess human properties; in Marxism, the belief that commodities possess human properties.


A commodity is something that is produced for the purpose of exchanging for something else, and as such, is the material form given to a fundamental social relation — the exchange of labor.

Review of L. 5


Introduction to library resources


- Find at least 1, pref. 2 peer-reviewed/refereed sources

- Be careful of online sources

- Evaluation: quality of sources too

- Annotated bibliography

- Articles and more: InfoTrac or EBSCO


What is revolution?


- an upheaval of the people

- a usually violent overthrow of the government , ideology, lifestyle or previously established institution

- a desire or action meant to change a current situation

- may occur in a discrete moment

- may originate out of general unhappiness/frustration of the people

- a perceived change for the better


Why Marx in the University?


The Study of Power Relations:


- gender

- class

- ethnicity

- religion and secularism


Marxist CRITIQUE – Change/revolutionize ways of thought/being 


- What are man-made illusions? How do humans create social institutions?

- What are the POWER RELATIONS that define these constructions?

- How is power constructed and who is complicit in these constructions?


Review of L. 6

Revolutions

Russian:


- 1905 Bloody Sunday

- 1917: Tsar’s family overthrown

- 1918: Counter-revolution


Ireland

- 1916: Easter Uprising

- 1922/23: Free State and Civil War


Spanish Civil War 1936-39


India

- 1919 massacre

- 1947: Independence


Imperialism and the Writings of Mao Zedong, Gandhi, Lenin, and Trotsky