The Methodology of the Modernists: Process in American Protestantism

2006 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Lofton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Shared Commitment ◽  
Self Examination ◽  
Modern Era

Scholarship on early-twentieth-century American Protestant modernism appears to have arrived at an impasse. Although scholars continue to explore the biographical contours of modernist individuals, and theologians still review the capacity of modernist theologies, the body of analytical scholarship on the “modernist impulse” has failed to keep apace with the glut of materials addressing its fraternal twin, fundamentalism. Published in 1976, William Hutchison's The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism remains the last significant historical commentary on the cultural and intellectual dynamics of Protestant modernism. In that masterful exegesis, Hutchison supplied the classic definition of this impulse, arguing that despite the diversity of its participants and complexity of their thought, the modernist movement in America could be accurately summarized as a shared commitment to cultural adaptation, God's immanent role in human development, and a postmillennial progressivism. While this tripartite formulation still provides the authoritative elucidation of early-twentieth-century Protestant thought, a reappraisal of the modernist canon reveals that Christian liberals not only were invested in theological overhaul and intellectual malleability, but also persistently specified an elaborate methodological structure for belief. In works such as Minot Savage's Jesus and Modern Life (1898), Margaret Benson's The Venture of Rational Faith (1908), Douglas Clyde Macintosh's Theology as an Empirical Science (1919), J. Macbride Sterrett's Modernism in Religion (1922), and Henry Nelson Wieman's The Wrestle of Religion with Truth (1927), seminarians and ministers offered detailed descriptions of how Protestants should think in the modern era. These were not expansive tracts bent on exploring the fluid boundaries of faith in a plural culture; rather, these were precise, pointed exhortations on the virtue of scrupulous historical research, scriptural comparison, and relentless self-examination. Rather than continue to translate Protestant modernism as cultural acquiescence and enthusiastic historicism, this essay suggests that a recalibrated portrait of this movement is needed.

Revaluations through Dance: Friedrich Nietzsche's Thought in Isadora Duncan's Speech The Dance of the Future

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-219
Author(s):  
Meindert E. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eternal Recurrence ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Mind

Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on Isadora Duncan's work, in particular his idea of the Dionysian, has been widely discussed, especially in regard to her later work. What has been left underdeveloped in critical examinations of her work, however, is his influence on her earlier choreographic work, which she defended in a famous speech held in 1903 called The Dance of the Future. While commentators often describe this speech as ‘Nietzschean’, Duncan's autobiography suggests that she only studied Nietzsche's work after this speech. I take this incongruity as a starting point to explore the connections between her speech and Nietzsche's work, in particular his Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I argue that in subject and language Duncan's speech resembles Nietzsche's in important ways. This article will draw attention to the ways in which Duncan takes her cues from Nietzsche in bringing together seemingly conflicting ideas of religion and an overturning of morality; Nietzsche's notion of eternal recurrence and the teleology present in his idea of the Übermensch; and a renegotiation of the body's relation to the mind. In doing so, this article contributes not only to scholarship on Duncan's early work but also to discussions of Nietzsche's reception in the early twentieth century. Moreover, the importance Duncan ascribes to the body in dance and expression also asks for a new understanding of Nietzsche's own way of expressing his philosophy.

Some Ancient Greek and Twentieth-Century Theories of Value

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-385
Author(s):  
Richard Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Good For ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract Plato puts goodness at the center of all practical thinking but offers no definition of it and implies that philosophy must find one. Aristotle demurs, arguing that there is no such thing as universal goodness. What we need, instead, is an understanding of the human good. Plato and Aristotle are alike in the attention they give to the category of the beneficial, and they agree that since some things are beneficial only as means, there must be others that are non-derivatively beneficial. When G. E. Moore proposed in the early twentieth century that goodness is, as Plato had said, the foundation of ethics, he rejected not only the assumption that goodness needs a definition, but also that goodness is beneficial – that is, good for someone. This article traces the development of this debate as it plays out in the writings of Prichard, Ross, Geach, Thomson, and Scanlon.

Maurice

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-153
Author(s):  
Finn Fordham
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Homosexual Orientation ◽  
The World ◽  
Resonant Term ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Edward Carpenter

As a queer bildungsroman, Maurice has a particular way of managing the relation between the body and the soul. Forster's exploration of the queer relationship between body and soul took place at a time when there was a battle over the nature of the soul, often defensive against materialism: concepts of identity and selfhood were undergoing radical contestations and the word 'soul' is a resonant term in modernist novels. How did emerging discourses, such as those of Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, and many others, about homosexual orientation relate to these contemporary discourses around the self? The chapter focuses on two passages about body and soul, whose textual genesis reveals problems of phrasing, as Forster’s unprecedented investigation of sexuality takes him to the edge of identity. It then examines how certain spaces, such as windows and thresholds, become symbolic zones of transgressive encounters between inner and outer, soul and body. It concludes by showing how Forster avoids drawing up any consistent ‘doctrine’ of body and soul. As a work of fiction in which different visions of the world come into conflict with each other, Maurice is a unique and vital witness of transforming discourses about homosexuality in the early twentieth century.

“A Mix of Mineral and Grease”

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-258
Author(s):  
Thomas Alan Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Gerard Manley Hopkins ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Elizabeth Madox Roberts ◽  
Self Examination

Gerard Manley Hopkins has had a pervasive influence on contemporary Appalachian poets, rooted in such early twentieth century authors as Elizabeth Madox Roberts and continued into the new century by poets and novelists such as Robert Morgan, Jane Hicks, Ron Rash, Maurice Manning, Melissa Range, and Rose McLarney. Hopkins’s work has challenged these writers “to see the interconnectedness of their subjects, inviting them to explore and manipulate language in inventive, surprising fashion, and eliciting from them forthright self-examination of their sense of self, place, and spirit.”

The Problem of Social Identities in Early Twentieth Century Russia: Observations on the Commentaries by Alfred Rieber and William Rosenberg

Slavic Review ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 512-517
Author(s):  
Leopold h. Haimson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
The Body ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Revolution

Alfred Rieber and William Rosenberg have greatly contributed by their respective commentaries to broadening the scope of the issues addressed in my discussion of “The Problem of Social Identities in Early Twentieth Century Russia” (see Slavic Review [Spring 1988]: 1-20). They have also helped bring out the complexity of the processes involved, after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1917, in the shaping and reshaping of the representations that individuals and groups entertained of themselves, of one another, and of the body politic as a whole.

scholarly journals Selling Sex Toys: Marketing and the Meaning of Vibrators in Early Twentieth-Century America

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
HALLIE LIEBERMAN
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Body ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Household Appliance ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Sex Toys

The electromechanical vibrator originated in the late nineteenth century as a device for medical therapy. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, however, marketing of vibrators as consumer appliances became pervasive. Ads appeared in the pages ofThe New York TimesandScientific Americanand plastered street cars. Companies marketed vibrators to grandparents, mothers, infants, and young adults. Vibrators are widely sold today, however, as instruments for masturbation, a use that was rarely mentioned but well known before World War II. How was vibrator advertising able to become so ubiquitous during the early twentieth century, despite draconian antiobscenity laws and antimasturbation rhetoric? This article argues that companies achieved this result by shaping the meaning of vibrators through strategic marketing. This marketing overtly portrayed vibrators as nonsexual while covertly conveying their sexual uses through imagery and the sale of phallic, dildo-like attachments.Companies positioned vibrators within two major consumer product categories in the early 1900s: labor-saving household appliances and electrotherapeutic devices. By advertising the vibrator as both a labor-saving household appliance and a sexualized health panacea, companies could slip vibrator ads past the censors, while supplying user manuals that clued consumers into specific sexual uses. In household appliance ads, companies drew on traditional gender roles to present vibrators as emblems of domesticity and motherhood, whereas in electrotherapeutic ads they presented vibrators as symbols of progressive gender roles, the sexualized new woman and the body-conscious “self-made man.”

The Beauty of the Lilies: Femininity, Innocence, and the Sweet Gospel of Uldine Utley

2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
The Press ◽  
Conservative Protestantism ◽  
Biblical Literalism ◽  
Blue Eyes ◽  
Feminine Persona ◽  
Twentieth Century America

AbstractIn the 1920s, a child evangelist by the name of Uldine Utley toured the United States, attracting large crowds and captivating the press. She enjoyed the support of ministers from a wide variety of denominations, though her most ardent proponent was the famous fundamentalist preacher John Roach Straton. In many ways, Utley's success seems to counter existing narratives of early-twentieth-century religious history. Her revivalist ministry developed in an era that saw the decline of revivalism, and she rose to prominence during the height of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Claiming to adhere to biblical “literalism,” she nonetheless affirmed the appropriateness of female preaching. And, in the wake of efforts to masculinize American Protestantism and rediscover a “muscular” Christianity, Utley was known and celebrated for her femininity and beauty.Utley's femininity was, in fact, central to her appeal. She preached a “sweet and kindly gospel” and fashioned an elaborate feminine persona. Her diminutive size, her blond hair and blue eyes, and her white attire seemed to give her an “angelic” appearance, and her persistent association with flowers, both allegorical and real, further contributed to her aura of femininity. In the context of shifting gender arrangements and changing constructions of sexuality and morality in early-twentieth-century America, Utley's femininity and innocence provided a soothing alternative to the uncertain times. But the model of femininity Utley displayed was fraught with ambivalence and proved difficult to maintain as she matured from child to young woman. In addition to illuminating a frequently overlooked strand of conservative Protestantism during this time, attention to Utley's life and ministry also reveals a powerful yet ambivalent script that remains available to modern Protestant women to this day.

scholarly journals V.M. SHUKSHIN AND “NEW PEASANT POETS”: SURVIVED CHILDREN OF NOT SURVIVED FATHERS

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-15
Author(s):  
A.A. Shorokhov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The article combines two significant historical and literary phenomena. The first is a group of Russian poets and prose writers of the early twentieth century, known under the general name “new peasant poets”. The second is a group of Russian writers of the late twentieth century, whose work has received a steady definition of “village prose”. V.M. Shukshin’s works are also referred to this cultural phenomenon. The article attempts to get away from simplifying definitions of “urban romance”, “village prose”, and to establish the civilizational continuity of Shukshin’s work with “new peasant poets” of the early twentieth century. The author also tries to consider the phenomenon of the group of “new peasant poets” from the cultural, philosophical and historical-biographical points of view – In the unity of their work, fate and dramatic changes in the history of Russia. The article uses theoretical works on Russian and world literature and history by M.M. Bakhtin, V.V. Kozhinova, I.R. Shafarevich, G.I. Shmeleva, P.F. Alyoshkina, S.Yu. and S.S. Kunyaevs, recent publications on Shukshin’s works by V.I. Belov, A.D. Zabolotsky, and A.N. Varlamov.

scholarly journals “Intermedialism” as a category of literary studies and mediology

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Street Art ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Net Art ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Modern Era

The article is devoted to theoretical problems of the interaction of arts and the term "intermedialism", which has certain amorphous features. The causes of attention to intermedial aspects of culture in the last decade are explained. In particular, it is a question of weakening of the cognitive function of literature and, accordingly, enhancing its aesthetic component and the development of hybrid genres. The study of intermedial aspects actualizes the study of literature in general. In the literary dictionary the term "intermedialism" was first introduced by Oge A. Hansen-Leo in 1983. The structure of this concept, the word-building aspect are analyzed. In modern mediology the phenomenon of art is considered at the level of other semiotic entities, so the work of art is a media, mediator, ingot of information and a quiz. The positions of M. Maklyueen and L. Elström are given. The terms "interaction of arts", "synthesis of arts", "interpenetration of arts" have exhausted their lexical potential, faced with the specifics of new types of creativity (for example, net art, street art), although they are still actively used in art studies studios. The correlation between the concepts of "intermedialism" and "intertextuality" is outlined. The definitions of "intermedialism", interpretation of the interaction of art by Y. Lotman, Y. Kristeva, A. Hansen-Löve, N. Tishunina, V. Prozalova and other researchers are given. The definition of V. Prozalova is considered to be the most adequate (intermedialism – “is a way of correlating artistic phenomena, the presence in artistic works of elements transposed from other forms of art"). Attention to the fact that "intermedialism" is also a methodology of literary analysis is drawn. The example of the new Ukrainian literature shows the extremes of the index of intermedialism: the works of T. Shevchenko, the end of the XIX – early of the XX century, 20-30 years of the twentieth century, the epoch of the sixties, the era of postmodernism. The reasons for the writers’ appeal to other types of art are explained: the universalism of the artistic thinking of T. Shevchenko, the image of the Subject in modernism, the rapid development of arts in Ukraine after the revolution of 1917 and others. It is concluded that in the modern era the term "intermedialism" is relevant because the person of the XXI century is influenced by many media, is intermedial in the broadest sense of the word.

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