The End of the Modernist Era in Arts and Academia

This book identifies thenow moribundModernist spirit of the twentieth century, with its "make it new" attitude in the arts, and its tendency towards abstraction and the scientific process, as the impetus behind the academic structures of universities and museums, together with the development of discrete scholarly disciplines such as literary theory, sociology, and art history based on quasi-scientific principles. Arguing that the Modernist project is approaching exhaustion and that the insights that it has left to yield are approaching triviality, it explores the Modernist links between the arts and academic pursuits of the Westand their relationship with street protestsin the long twentieth century, considering what might follow this Modernist era. An examination of the broad cultural and intellectualand now politicaltrends of our age, and their decline, The End of the Modernist Era in Arts and Academia will appeal to scholars and students of social theory, philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies.