Modern Criticism Research Articles

Just What Is a “Right-Wing Space?”: Revisiting a Debate About Architectural Theory and Far Right Populism

This article analyses the debate about the relationship between the rise of the far right and the built environment in Germany. Four distinct arguments are identified and evaluated: the development of a critique of architectural modernism by far-right intellectuals; the rehabilitation of Nazi architects and theorists; the creation of spaces for right-wing prefigurative politics; and, lastly, historical reconstructions as a factor in the rightward shift of political culture. The article claims that all these arguments have some validity, but that only the last points to a development with wider political impact. It also argues that there has been a shift from a critical understanding of reconstructions to an uncritical one, and that uncritical reconstructions can facilitate a rapprochement between centre-right parties and intellectuals and far-right figures.

Struggling for Design for the Pluriverse in the Global North

This article explores the difficulties of conducting pluriversal design in the Global North. The point of departure is Arturo Escobar’s discussion on design for the pluriverse, which is a critique of modernity and unsustainability. The analysis centers on a project to develop a game to uncover the unsustainability integral to modern commerce, in the form of value chains of products produced in the Global South and consumed in the Global North. The researchers follow and document their experience with the development of the game aimed at sensitizing school students in the Global North to the injustices, resource overuse, and violence integral to value chains. The analysis describes how the intention to apply pluriversal design principles risks being betrayed by the same designers committed to them, because of their embeddedness in modernity. The authors propose two concrete strategies: first, recognizing that activating pluriversal principles will create discomfort in the designers and the design process; second, developing a vision to activate pluriversal principles.

The first catchment water balance: New insights into Pierre Perrault, his perceptual model and his peculiar catchment

ABSTRACT Pierre Perrault and his 1674 book De l’Origine des Fontaines are widely acknowledged in hydrology as the first formal articulation of the catchment water balance based on field data. Many summaries of his work have now been written, but few of these summaries have examined Perrault’s perceptual model in detail and none that we are aware of have gone back to his study catchment to collect new data in which to frame these historic findings in a modern context. Here we report new insights (with re-calculations of some of his analyses) into Perrault’s work, his perceptual model of streamflow generation and his rather peculiar 119 km2 headwater catchment of the Seine River basin. We show the uncertainty of his flow and catchment area estimates, some errors in perception about hydrological flowpaths and new age estimates for the spring-fed site where he worked. Despite these modern criticisms and updates, Perrault’s place in hydrological history is secure: he was the first to bring quantitative analysis to fundamental questions of the terrestrial water cycle.

El hilo y la pluma: diversas perspectivas hacia el tejer de un texto poético

Arachne, Penelope, Circe, Ariadne, and Moiras share the same attribute: the thread. These female figures from Greco-Roman mythology have become archetypes of women with the needle. The mythical spinners and their sewing have led to the coining of one of the obsessive metaphors of modern criticism: the relationship between the fabric and the literary text. We can observe it, especially, in contemporary poetry, in which the creation of the poetic texture – obvious is the metapoetic and self-referential background here – frequently constitutes one of the main themes. The objective of this article is to present different perspectives on the metaphorical role of mythological weavers as woman creating poetic text in the lyrical work of Aurora Luque (1962), Chantal Maillard (1951), and Sonia Bueno (1976).

Roots, trees, and the re-enchantment of nature: the French new right’s eco-political utopia

ABSTRACT People on the radical right are often considered to be climate deniers. Today, however, the new right in France has embraced a radical, ecological agenda and set out to experiment with traditional, agrarian ways of life. This paper asks how the new right currently revives a far-right tradition of ecological thought and how they practice this ecological vision. To move forward with their ethno-ecological utopia and salvage European civilization, they turn away from national politics and create local communities or ‘identitarian sanctuaries’. This article explores the new right’s practiced eco-utopias from three different angles. First, it shows how the ‘native soil’ and notions of ‘rootedness’ are pivotal for their understanding of identity. Second, it examines how the new right reframes ‘biodiversity’ as a plurality of European cultures, currently threatened by global capitalism and unchecked immigration. Finally, the article argues that the new right’s critique of modernity is not only political but also epistemic. To break free from modern scientific worldviews and enable a re-enchantment of nature, they turn to fantasy literature as well as Romantic and neo-pagan spiritualities.

Prevalence and factors associated with the perpetration and victimization of teen dating violence: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Dating violence is a global health problem that affects adolescents physically, psychologically and sexually. During adolescence, there is a high prevalence and negative consequences in both perpetration and victimization, which can vary according to culture, but maintain common characteristics in traditional societies. Factors associated with the perpetration and victimization of gender-based violence among adolescents include gender inequality, discrimination, substance use, parental neglect, peer influence and exposure to family violence. Despite modern criticisms of gender expectations, traditional views that legitimize violence persist. In this sense, the collection of global data on the prevalence and factors associated with dating violence among adolescents could favour comparative studies between Western and Eastern cultures and is fundamental for informing public policies in a globalized world. It is hoped that the results will contribute to expanding scientific knowledge in the area, as well as helping managers and the academic community to target resources, identify risk groups and promote gender equality from adolescence onwards. In this sense, this study aims to globally assess the prevalence and factors associated with the perpetration and victimization of dating violence among adolescents. It is hoped that the results will expand scientific knowledge in this area.

Disavowing history

If the secession of formerly colonized countries from large imperial units is a story of political hope, the central actors in Quinn Slobodian’s story perceive the opportunities provided by the proliferation of new jurisdictions following decolonization very differently. According to the “market radicals” of the late 20th and 21st centuries, the break-up of empire is not a story of the potential for the democratization of politics and history-writing. Their ideas do however offer critiques of modernity. In this commentary, I convene critics of modernity – anticolonial leaders, historians of decolonization and the aftermath of empire, Indigenous and tribal peoples and their historians, and decolonial thinkers – in conversation with the capitalist adventurers of Slobodian’s tale, via an exploration of the limits and possibilities of history-writing and the politics of historicist discourse.

What Is Nietzschean Weakness of Will?

ABSTRACT The notions of strength and weakness of will appear at central junctures in Nietzsche’s philosophy, figuring, for example, into his critique of modernity (BGE 212) and his engagement with the free will debate (BGE 21). Despite the centrality of these notions for Nietzsche’s philosophical project, little scholarly attention has been devoted to examining how Nietzsche actually conceives of strength and weakness of will. Instead, it is commonly assumed that Nietzsche simply follows his philosophical predecessors in identifying weakness with akrasia. In this paper, I challenge this reading, arguing that the primary kind of agential failure that Nietzsche associates with weakness is irresoluteness, understood as the failure to persist in one’s intentions.

Musthalah al-Tanash Nasyatuhu wa Ta’shiluhu wa Huduruhu fi al-Adab al-‘Arabi

A number of contemporary Arab critics have sought to root many Western critical concepts by searching for their origins in the ancient Arab and rhetorical heritage, including, for example, “intertextuality.” These critics agree that the ancient Arab critical heritage is full of critical theories and concepts, and it is necessary to return to it to uncover the origins of these modern Western theories and concepts, and to reintegrate them into modern criticism. The concept of intertextuality is one of the most Western concepts exposed to rooting in contemporary Arab criticism. This concept was rooted by linking it to old concepts created by Arab critics in the past, such as quotation, inclusion, literary theft, and others. Thus, Arab critics have enriched the human critical heritage with critical theories that they produced and applied to Arab poetic creativity. Arabs knew the idea of intertextuality in its concept, dimensions, and some of its functions, but they did not naturally create this Western term. Some modern Arab critics sought to purify the concept of intertextuality from its impurities that make it a dangerous concept, so that it could be rooted and considered a new and contemporary formulation of the concept of legalized thefts, which Abdul Qaher Al-Jurjani defined as "imitation".

Bruno Latour, la modernidad y las ciencias: ¿dónde aterrizar?

This work gathers Bruno Latour’s critique of modernity and the idea of progress, giving special attention to his critique of modern science and the separation it carries out between nature and society. From these perspective, two concrete cases are analyzed that show the prevalence of this conception in current social science: the claims to the technical treatment of the coronavirus pandemic and the purely technical analysis of the water resource. In the first case, it is emphasized that the pandemic is also a political problem; in the second, that the water problem also has political and social implications. Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 163, 2024: 106-124.

Complexity, Reality and Ontological Insecurity: On Mistakes and Navigational Skills

This article explores the concept of reality and the transformation concerning the complex approach to the modes of existence based on the interrelation between diverse actants that make up our world. Considering recent ontological debates and critiques of modernity, the article argues for a shift away from ready-made suppositions about reality and the desire for simplified answers. We propose a radical idea of an actant interaction perspective grounded in Bruno Latour’s and Hartmut Rosa’s ideas of exploring an ontology embracing curiosity, imagination, and the importance of making mistakes as necessary attitudes in navigating the uncontrollable nature of reality. The article emphasizes the importance of embracing a sense of liberty when comprehending and interacting with the world. It encourages us to concentrate on the strengths and connections of living organisms.

المردود القبيح للمتغيرات الفلسفية والاجتماعية في فنون ما بعد الحداثة

The Ugly Consequence of Philosophical, and Social changes in Postmodern Art has had a profound impact on Art, Thought, and Culture by challenging established Beliefs, and raising questions about the nature of Reality, and Knowledge. And as a Reflection of those changes that occurred in the twentieth century, The Arts in turn rejected traditional concepts such as objective truth, absolute meaning, and classical beauty, and adopted Pluralism, Deconstruction, Uncertainty, Decentralization, Individualism, and Futility over Philosophical Thought, resulting in fragmented and chaotic Artistic Expression, and emphasised criticism and questioning traditional Beliefs and Values, resulting in Art that is often critical and controversial. Postmodern art has embraced Cultural Pluralism by attempting to blend different values to express Social Conditions, and has completely distanced itself from Abstraction. Postmodern concepts have been formulated on the basis of a critique of modernism, which was based on the idea of the existence a History of Thought that moves usually on the basis of possessing understandable Concepts as complete Origins, and in Postmodern Art we found out a return to representational language, and differentiated consistency that suits different tastes as it carries different messages, and artistic trends became more interactive with Society and the Public, which gives the Artwork the characteristic of spread and integration with the surrounding environment, whether Social, Cultural, Economic, or Political. These changes have also led to diverse Arts that are rich in experiences, but are often difficult to understand and unconventional, which have led to criticism of these arts for being elitist and chaotic, yet they have contributed to the development of new and interesting Art Forms. In conclusion, Philosophical and Social Changes have played an important role in the formation of Postmodern Art, and the emergence of many new features accompanied by some negative consequences.

“Good to Feel With, Good to Think With”? Troubling the Affective Encounter in Medieval Bernardine and Anselmian Marian Dialogues

ABSTRACT This article focuses on medieval dialogues in which the Virgin Mary relates the Crucifixion story to an interlocutor, particularly the traditions surrounding Sts. Bernard and Anselm deriving from the twelfth-century Quis dabit and the thirteenth-century Dialogus beatae Mariae et Anselmi. Mary often figures as the supreme medieval model for compassion, and modern critics often position these dialogues as influential models for broader medieval affective piety traditions. A closer reading, however, reveals the dialogues’ affective tensions, undermining the idea that they seamlessly generate compassion for devoted readers. Mary appears alternately impassive and impassioned, detached and sunk anew in unspeakable sorrow; her interlocutors often compassionate her inadequately and flounder in the knowledge of that affective failure. This article explores such tensions, emphasizing the texts’ troubled temporality, Mary’s traumatic experience, and the interlocutor’s affective deficiencies. It directs attention to the troubling failures of feeling at the heart of several seemingly “affecting” medieval texts.

Politics, Patronage, and Poetics in Hobbes’s Homer

ABSTRACT Taking issue with the new orthodoxy that Hobbes set about his late-career translations of Homer in order to ventriloquize political opinions he was prevented by the processes of Restoration censorship from publishing, this article reexamines the foundations and questions the textual evidence for this interpretation. Drawing on previously unexamined evidence, the article shows that Hobbes’s patrons, the Cavendish family, had sponsored the recent translations of Homer by John Ogilby, and that Hobbes’s work represented an attempt to correct errors and infelicities in Ogilby’s work while defending Homer himself against ill-conceived attacks by modern critics such as Scaliger and Rapin.

Collins’s Heart: Childlike Sympathy and Coincidence in late-Victorian Literature and Science Debates

ABSTRACT: Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time (1882– 1883) channels the controversy that surrounded debates on vivisection and animal rights at the Victorian fin de siècle . Initial reviewers homed in on Collins’s oversimplified arguments against vivisection, which villainized experimental science and scientists; modern critics emphasize the negative associations casting women of science as absurd practitioners and hysterical patients. This analysis explores how Heart and Science encourages sympathetic dialogue between the arts and science; communicates anxiety in depictions of vivisection and women; and draws meaning and hope from narratives driven by music and children. Through metaphors of acoustic science and plots shaped by border-crossing children, the novel stresses listening as a necessary and healing component in discourses of difference.

Collins’s Heart: Childlike Sympathy and Coincidence in late-Victorian Literature and Science Debates

ABSTRACT: Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time (1882– 1883) channels the controversy that surrounded debates on vivisection and animal rights at the Victorian fin de siècle . Initial reviewers homed in on Collins’s oversimplified arguments against vivisection, which villainized experimental science and scientists; modern critics emphasize the negative associations casting women of science as absurd practitioners and hysterical patients. This analysis explores how Heart and Science encourages sympathetic dialogue between the arts and science; communicates anxiety in depictions of vivisection and women; and draws meaning and hope from narratives driven by music and children. Through metaphors of acoustic science and plots shaped by border-crossing children, the novel stresses listening as a necessary and healing component in discourses of difference.

Memory and Pain: A Critical Examination of Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt through the Holocaust

Tom Stoppard, a playwright of Jewish origin born in 1937, who is alive today, reflects his own past in terms of the Holocaust in his 2020 play Leopoldstadt. While Leopoldstadt conveys Stoppard’s life from past to present as an autobiographical family story, it also confronts the author with his painful past in the modern age. Besides the modern individual and Europe, both having undergone development and transformation with Modernity and Modernism, the traumatic traces left behind by the historical process reveal the reality of the Holocaust. In this respect, Leopoldstadt is important in terms of understanding the impact of the characters’ confrontation with their past memories and unforgettable traces caused by the Holocaust on the memory of modern and postmodern Jewish societies. The theoretical framework of this study is based on Zygmunt Bauman’s views on modernity. Bauman is a thinker who has made significant contributions to the issues of modernity and the Holocaust, and his work contains important explanations for understanding the complexities of the modern world. His critique of modernity also leads Leopoldstadt to address the effects of the Holocaust and the dark sides of the modern world. This study focuses on how Stoppard, who experienced the devastating effects of the Holocaust, addresses the interplay between his Jewish identity and the challenges he faced in the modern age. The aim of this study is to evaluate the traumatic painful realities of the historical process in the play Leopoldstadt from the perspective of the relationship between memory and history.

Italo-Soviet Architectural Exchanges and Postmodernism under Late Socialism

A global movement, architectural postmodernism cannot be reduced simply to the cultural logic of late capitalism, nor should its analysis be restricted, as in recent revisionist histories, to the geo- graphical confines of the Eastern Bloc. By revealing that the ideas, design strategies and images that make up postmodern architecture did not belong squarely to either side of the Cold War geopolitical divide, this paper argues that a full understanding of the movement requires an inquiry going beyond the scope of a single ideological context. The emergence of architectural postmodernism is to be located in the interstitial space between the 'capitalist West' and the 'socialist East'. Yet familiar narratives of knowledge transfer from the former to the latter are reductive and fail to capture historical reality in all its complexity and ambiguity. For instance, Aldo Rossi's work was known and may have been consciously replicated by Soviet architects. Less acknowledged is the fact that, in the Italian context, the rise of architectural postmodernism went hand in hand with the consolidation of a 'tradition of study of Soviet architecture'. Rossi was just one among many Italian architects —  such as Paolo Portoghesi, Carlo Aymonino or Vittorio Gregotti —  who, undertaking a critique of modernism, drew crucial inspiration from Soviet architecture, particularly Socialist Realist theory and practice.

Do Shakespeare’s characters mean what they say?

Do Shakespeare’s characters mean what they say?

Algumas notas sobre a relação entre Adorno e a Epistemologia do Sul

This paper aims to develop an understanding of how the culture industry still operates in the postcolonial era. To this end, the first part of this paper will look at Adorno and Horkheimer’s reading of modernity, touching on how instrumental reasoning can lend itself to barbarism, along with an exposition of Adorno’s analysis of the culture industry. The second part will present decolonial theory, its critique of European modernity and, particularly, its focus on neo-imperialism. This theory will then be put alongside critical theory, analyzing their differences concerning racial issues and how their critique of capitalism may represent a meeting point between the two theories. Finally, the conclusion will consider all previous elements to explain the connection between the Culture industry and its current strategy in former colonial areas.