Modernism and Postmodernism
Classroom Discussions and Experiences:
Genre Transition
(1914 to 1945) Modernism (1946 to Present) Postmodernism
Cultural Identity and Unity Social, Cultural, and Ethnic Pluralism
The "Nuclear" Family Many Identities For Coupling and Child Raising
"Low" and "High" Culture Are Separate Popular Culture Dominates High Culture
Mass Marketing Niche Local Marketing
Art is a Unique Finished Object Art is a Process, a Production, a Performance
Centralized Knowledge (Library/Encyclopedia) Fragmented, Incomplete Knowledge (Web)
Information Scarcity Information Overload and Glut
Centralized Hierarchies Networked and Decentralized Power
Clearly Defined Definitions and Separations Hybrids and Combinations
Serious Intention and Purposes Playful, Ironic, and Subverted Seriousness
Truth is Discovered Propaganda/Truth is Created
Defined Genders and Gender Roles Androgyny and Gender Identity
Modernism and Postmodernism Introductions:
Presentation: Modernism and Postmodernism are Poorly Named
Handout: Changes to Literature in Postmodernism (In Development)
Handout: Genre - Modernism by Mr. Finch (site)
Handout: Genre - Post Modernism by Mr. Finch (site)
Modernist Hero - "The Moment of Truth"
The concept of the Modernist Hero says that for most of our lives we are entirely unheroic, but it is possible, for a single moment to be heroic. Every protagonist faces a critical moment in their stories. A "moment of truth" in which a characters skill, character, courage, and virtue will be put to an extreme test. Rather than have an entire person be labeled as heroic, the Modern heroism is the decision of a single moment. A clear decision merging the doubts, thoughts, logic, and emotion of the internal with the threats, needs, and potential death of the external.
Postmodernist Hero - The Antihero
The simple way to explain this is to say: heroes are good guys fighting bad guys, and antiheroes are bad guys fighting worse guys. Antiheroes possess major flaws and are not idealistic. Antiheroes might be criminals and otherwise terrible people and are usually not the sort of person that makes a quality role model. Antiheroes have been around for a long time but became a trend in post-1950s storytelling. Stories featuring rebellious teenagers, bad cops, gangsters, murderers, and serial killers as main characters arose.
Article: Anti-Hero - TV Tropes
Postmodernist Hero - The Existential Hero
Existentialism was a strange thing. Existentialism believes that meaning is empty, there are no objective truths, life sucks, and there's nothing we can do about it. An existential hero believes that the world is meaningless and nothing we do matters or really helps. An existential hero in spite of knowing this, still tries to make a difference in the world and does the most good they can with their lives. They choose to be heroic knowing that it will not bring them reward or salvation. Existential heroes grasp the absurd pointlessness of life and embrace it rather than despair.
Postmodernist Hero - The Superhero
The behavior of a superhero is much the same as existing antiheroes and idealized heroes. The differences are in the abilities and origins of the protagonists and antagonists. Main characters will often be non-human, mutant, alien, or otherworldly. Main characters will have abilities, strength, and speed vastly beyond what the best human could achieve. The plots and conflicts center around large-scale consequences such as the end of the world, the destruction of an entire city, or the enslavement or genocide of a people. Superhero stories fill the gap of the older epic stories like Gilgamesh, Heracles, and Samson who have godly, demi-godly, or inhuman power.
View of Soldiers Through Genre - Ernest Hemingway and the Rise of the Antihero
Handout: The Rise of the Antihero
Text: Soldier's Home by Ernest Hemingway (1925) - Fictional Harold Krebs, Veteran of World War I
Text: The Old Man at the Bridge by Ernest Hemingway (1938) - Fictional story set during the Spanish Civil War (July 17, 1936 - April 1, 1939)
View of Soldiers Through Genre - Tim O'Brien and the Breakdown of Traditions and Institutions
Text: Speaking of Courage by Tim O'Brien (1990) - Class Textbook Page 867 - Fictional Norman Bowker, Veteran of the Vietnam War (November 1, 1955 - April 30, 1975)
Text: How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O'Brien (1987)
Audiobook: How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O'Brien (1987) - Read by Bryan Cranston
https://sites.google.com/a/bcs448.org/12th-grade-ela-2012/resources
How War Has Changed Over Time
Video: Old Soldier Meets Young Soldier | The Gap - November 10, 2019 - LADBible - John Dennett, 95, Veteran of World War II speaks with Ste Nichols, 34, Veteran of Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan
Enfranchisement of Previously Subjugated Groups - The Harlem Renaissance
Video Opener: Langston Hughes & the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course Literature 215
Poems: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes - Selections: Harlem [Dream Deferred], I, Too, Sing America, Theme for English B, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Dream Variations, Dream Boogie
Enfranchisement of Previously Subjugated Groups - The Feminist Equality Movement
Video Opener: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath: Crash Course Literature 216
Poems: Selected Poems of Sylvia Plath - Selections: Lady Lazarus, Letter in November, Tulips
The Problem of Advertising and the Future of Storytelling
Suspension of Disbelief
Design for Advertising Windows - Chapters of Varied Size
The Vault
!! In development
AP Works - American Literature - American Modernism - 1914-1945 CE (Very Few in the Public Domain)
Trifles by Susan Glaspell (1916) - Play
My Antonia by Willa Cather (1918) - Novel
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920) - Novel
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (1920) - Novel
The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill (1922) - Play
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot (1922) - Poem
AP Works - American Literature - American Postmodernism - 1946-Present (None in the Public Domain)
All postmodernist works are not in the public domain in the United. They are all copyrighted with few exceptions.
Link Holding
Visual Aid: The World As 100 People 1820-2015 - Max Roser
Visual Aid: Election Results by State 1789-2016 - zonination
Topic: Species Advantages and Disadvantages
Video: Human Vs. Horse Marathon - NPR's Skunk Bear - October 20, 2015 - Advantages: Sweating, Long Distance Endurance Running
Video: Are Humans OP? - TierZoo - June 9, 2018 - Advantages: Throwing, Sweating, Talking, Learning. Disadvantages: Stealth, Tanks, Insect Swarms
Infographic: Battling Infectious Diseases in the 20th Century: The Impact of Vaccines - Tynan DeBold and Dev Friedman - Wall Street Journal - February 11, 2015 - Advantage: Science, Disadvantages: Vulnerable to Disease, Viruses, Fungi.
Video: Why Cities Exist - Wendover Productions - January 23, 2018 - Advantages: Cities and Specialization
Topic: Automation
Video: Humans Need Not Apply - CGP Grey - August 13, 2014
Video: The Rise of the Machines - Why Automation is Different this Time - Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell - June 8, 2017
Article: The Age of the Robot Worker Will Be Worse For Men - Jerry Kaplan - The Atlantic - August 4, 2015
Article: Massive Robots Keep Docks Shipshape - Erica E. Phillips - Wall Street Journal - March 27, 2016
Article: RBS Goes to Robo-Advisors, Fires Hundreds; Real Advisor Requires £250,000 - Mike "Mish" Shedlock - MishTalk - March 17, 2016
Article: How to Upgrade Judges with Machine Learning - Tom Simonite - MIT Technology Review - March 6, 2017
Video: ABB Robotics - Picking And Packing Salami Snacks - ABB Robotics - April 19, 2010
Video: How The Tesla Model S Is Made - Wired - July 16, 2013
Video: Building The Steam Controller - Valve - December 10, 2015
Video: Robot Farming In Your Backyard - Farmbot - July 11, 2016 - https://farmbot.io/
Website: Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine? - NPR - May 21, 2015
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/27/21155254/automation-robots-unemployment-jobs-vs-human-google-amazon
Topic: AI Defeating Humans
Chess
Deep Blue (1997) - Video: Deep Blue vs Kasparov: How a computer beat best chess player in the world - BBC News - May 14, 2017
Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2)
OpenAI (2017) - Video: Elon Musk's 'Dota 2' Experiment is Disrupting Esports in a Big Way - No Playing Field - Mashable - August 31, 2017
Go
AlphaGo (2016) - Video: AI vs. Human: The Greatest Go Tournament Ever - SciShow - March 18, 2016
AlphaGo Zero (2017) - Video: New DeepMind AI Beats AlphaGo 100-0 | Two Minute Papers #201 - Two Minute Papers - October 20, 2017
Topic: Small Wars and Stresses Caused by the Big War that Cannot Happen
Article: Here's How Much of Your Life the United States Has Been At War - Philip Bump - The Washington Post - May 25, 2015
Infographic: Ongoing Armed Conflicts 2014-2015 - Kirill Kosenkov - Knoema - August 20, 2015
Topic: Legal Problems for Postmodernism
Article: Is Harm to a Prosthetic Limb Property Damage or Personal Injury? - Luke Robert Mason - Motherboard - January 26, 2016
Topic: Athletics and Physical Specialization
Video: How NFL Rule Changes Made Linemen Gigantic - Vox - February 4, 2017
Image: Shaquille O'Neal Standing Next To Simone Biles (He's 7'1" 325 lbs. and she's 4'8" in heels 104 lbs.)
Video: The 6th Konami Arcade Championship - Dance Dance Revolution Finals - iamchris4life - February 11, 2017
Video: Sonic Boom V SFV Top 64 BlindWarriorSven (KE) vs Vitality | TKR (CH/AB) - Madrid FGC - July 9, 2018
Topic: Infrastructure
Article: America Gets a D Plus for Infrastructure, and a Big Bill to Fix It - Jack Stewart - Wired - March 9, 2017
Topic: Labor
Article: Fastest Growing Occupations - United States Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics - December 7, 2015
Article: Mapping the Difference Between Minimum Wage and Cost of Living - Tanvi Misra - Citylab - September 10, 2015
Infographic: How Many Hours Do Men and Women Usually Work Each Week? - Chase - Overflow Solutions - March 8, 2017
Topic: Self-Driving Cars and the Morality of Machines
Article: Autonomous Cars Don't Need Drivers, or Stoplights, Says MIT Research - Patrick Sisson - Curbed - March 18, 2016
Article: Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse - Ian Adams and Anne Hobson - Slate - December 30, 2016
Interactive: The Moral Machine - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Video: The Greater Good - Mind Field - Michael Stevens - Vsauce - December 6, 2017
Video: Would You Sacrifice One Person to Save Five? - Eleanor Nelson - TEDEd - January 12, 2017
Video: I, Robot - Difference Engine Clip - Save the Adult or Save the Child?
https://news.ucsc.edu/2019/01/millardball-vehicles.html
Topic: Scarcity
Article: A Forecast of When We'll Run Out of Each Metal - Jeff Desjardins - Visual Capitalist - September 4, 2014
Topic: Education
Article: The History of UC Tuition Since 1868 - Lily Vega - The Daily Californian - December 22, 2014
Article: What States and Counties Have the Most People Without a High School Education? - Chase - Overflow Solutions - March 6, 2017
Infographic: The State of Our Union is ... Dumber - Guardian US Interactive Team - The Guardian - February 12, 2013
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/magazine/education-by-the-numbers.html
Topic: "Always On" Work Culture
Article: French Workers Win Legal Right to Avoid Checking Work Email Out-Of-Hours - Agence France-Presse - December 31, 2016
Topic: Millenials
Article: Millennials Earn 20% Less Than Boomers Did at the Same Stage of Life - Associated Press - USA Today - January 13, 2017
Article: High School Student Substance Abuse: United States and Europe - ProjectKnow - 2017
Video: Simon Sinek on Millenials in the Workplace - Simon Sinek - Inside Quest - October 29, 2016
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20171003-proof-that-people-have-always-complained-about-young-adults
Topic: How Do You Define "Dead"?
Article: The Macabre Fate of 'Beating Heart Corpses' - Zaria Gorvett - BBC - November 4, 2016
Topic: Money Isn't Real
Video: When Money Isn't Real: The $10,000 Experiment - Adam Carroll - TEDxLondonBusinessSchool - July 9, 2015
Topic: Economic Classes
Article: America's Youngest Children Most Likely to Live in Poor Economic Conditions - Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health - EurekAlert - February 8, 2017
Topic: Journalism
Video: MSNBC Interrupts Congresswoman for a Report on Justin Bieber - Andrea Mitchell Reports - MSNBC - January 22, 2014
Topic: Climate Change
Article - It's So Hot In Phoenix, Planes Are Physically Unable To Fly - Andrew J. Hopkins - The Verge - June 20, 2017
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/australia-green-sea-turtles-turning-female-climate-change-raine-island-sex-temperature/
Topic: Genetics and Eugenics
Article: A Lucky Two Percent of People Have a Gene for Stink-Free Armpits - Joseph Stromberg - Smithsonian.com - January 18, 2013
Unsorted Curiosities:
http://rameznaam.com/2016/04/12/how-cheap-can-electric-vehicles-get/
http://overflow.solutions/demographic-data/what-is-the-marital-status-of-americans-by-age/
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/rent-is-affordable-to-low-wage-workers-in-exactly-12-us-counties/529782/
www.cnbc.com/2017/06/12/nobody-making-federal-minimum-wage-can-afford-a-two-bedroom-apartment.html
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/mcdonalds-hits-all-time-high-as-wall-street-cheers-replacement-of-cashiers-with-kiosks.html
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609091/first-evidence-that-online-dating-is-changing-the-nature-of-society/
https://www.wired.com/story/how-journalists-fought-back-against-crippling-email-bombs
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/timeline-future-technology/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/army-stressed-decade-war/story?id=11277253
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e68CoE70Mk8
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/ring-ring-ring-ring/561545/?utm_source=feed
https://flowingdata.com/2019/12/16/occupation-growth-and-decline/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/goldsberry-SUPER-BOWL-0131-1-2.png?w=2048
Popular Culture Dominates High Culture
One of the qualities that makes Postmodernism (now!) different from past isms is that there isn’t a clear difference between low and high culture. In the past high culture was ballet and the symphony and the low was fart jokes, freak shows, and everything the common man loves. The last 80 years has merged the two into one mixture where low and high don’t mean much. Popular culture now dominates high culture. Symphonies aren’t for the rich and exclusive, they are for movie soundtracks and video games.
I remember playing Ducktales for the NES. This game came out in 1989. All levels had background music, but one level stood out as having a really superior musical jam. The Moon level. This was the age of MIDI and it was really a professional making music out of bleeps and bloops on the earliest synthesizers. It is amazing where inspiration comes from sometimes. It turns out this song has a fan base and has been remade and remixed and genre shifted all over the internet. I’ll post the original and a symphonic version for you to compare. Imagine the traditionally high style orchestra batons and instruments inspired by a game based on a cartoon based on a comic book.
Ducktales (1989) for the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985-1995)
Original Track composed by Yoshihiro Sakaguchi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF32DRg9opA
Orchestral Cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwbMkIROOGU
Metal Cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyVzKx-5l24
A Cappella Cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhy2aNEPshw
Big Band Cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPy_AHIIkZY
Hybrids and Combinations
In art, or at least traditionally, there were standards you had to follow. Rules you had to obey. Fences you had to stay within. We don't have any fences anymore. You can have music videos (so many), parody horror comedy movies (Shaun of the Dead), rapping on Broadway (Hamilton), and famously and recently pop rap country music (Old Town Road). You can overlap, mix, and blend genres and styles without limit now. A work of art can change its mind about what kind of art it is every few minutes.
Why 'Bohemian Rhapsody' Is The Best Song Ever Written | The Art Of Film - Insider - October 31, 2018 - Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is five different kinds of song in one song (A Capella, Ballad, Opera, Rock, Coda).
Justice - New Lands (Official Video) - July 12, 2012
Sports Media: Baseball mixed with Lacrosse mixed with American Football mixed with Motorcycles mixed with Roller Derby
Sports Movies as an Archetype: Hero player, Crowd Cheers as they come out, Aggressive Coach, Fallen Player, Final Score at Last minute, Shady Owners, etc.
Movie Influence: Rollerball (1975) - Official Rollerball Trailer #1
Character from a Movie Influence: Snake Plissken, the iconic hero with an eye patch from Escape from New York (1981)
Japanese Anime Fight Scenes
Video Game Influence: Robot Player controlled by an Arcade joystick and buttons (down rollback + kick accurately done on the controller) performing Tatsumaki Senpukyaku aka a "Hurricane Kick" from the Street Fighter series. Compare Ryu's Hurricane Kick to the robot's kick at 3m37s in the video.
All of this is to promote a song by an electronic music duo called Justice (Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay)