1. The 20th Century and After
1901-current time

2. TimeLine
1914 World War I
1922 James Joyce’s Ulysses; T.S. Elliot’s “The Waste Land”
1929 Stock Market crash and Great Depression
World War II
1947 India and Pakistan become independent
1953 Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago become independent
1991 Collapse of Soviet Union
2001 Destruction of World Trade Center

3. Social Sciences New concepts radically changing human identity
Sigmund Freud Interpretation of Dreams – psychology (psychoanalysis)
Sir James Frazer Golden Bough – anthropology (culture, religion, myth)
Friedrich Nietzsche – philosophy and challenges to religious doctrine

4. Science and Technology
Max Planck’s quantum theory
Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity
Wireless communication across Atlantic 1901
Wright brothers’ airplane 1903
Henry Ford and the Model T 1913
Atomic Energy and Bomb 1945
Moon Landing 1969
Internet 1969
Personal Computers

5. Women’s Rights 1882 Woman’s Property Act
Late 1800’s Women allowed in various universities
Suffragettes late 1800’s early 1900’s
1918 Women 30 and over could vote
1928 Women 21 and over could vote

6. Problems of Empire 1899 -1902 Anglo-Boer war and protests
1907 Canada, Australia, and New Zealand given dominion status
World War I: at the start of the war about 25% of the earth under British control
Irish free state
Increasing calls for self rule in Indian and Africa “swaraj”
World War II and loss of empire
1947 India and Pakistan win independence
Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago become independent
1950s and beyond - reverse colonization and shifting identity
Continuing issues with IRA

7. Modernism Review
From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include:
1. an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing.
2. a movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Joyces multiply-narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism.
3. a blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary (as in T.S. Eliot or ee cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce).
4. an emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials.

8. Modernism Review Cont.
From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include:
5. a tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something constructed and consumed in particular ways.
6. a rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs (as in the poetry of Philip Larkin) and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation.
7. A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming art.

9. Modernism versus Post-Modernism
Postmodernism follows most of the conventions of modern art. Postmodern art (and thought) favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subject.
But--while postmodernism seems very much like modernism in these ways, it differs from modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernisn see fragmentation, ambiguity, and a destructured, dehumanized subject as tragic.
Many modernist works try to uphold the idea that works of art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning which has been lost in most of modern life.
Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that. The world is meaningless? Let's not pretend that art can make meaning then, let's just play with nonsense.