The Age of Pluralism

Francisco Pesante HUM-102

The Postmodernism Turn

The Postmodernism Turn

Former colonies claimed independence from imperial control Ethnic, racial and other minorities fought their way to position of equality Nations became to be classified according to their level of economic achievement:
First World Second World Third World

The Postmodernism Turn

Post Second World War developments
Population growth Suburban life Consumerism Higher quality of life

The Postmodernism Turn

Nations became ideologically polarized between capitalist and socialist societies. Competition for world supremacy in political and military affairs marked the Cold War
Ended by the dismantling of the Berlin Wall (1989) Collapse of the Soviet socialism (1991)

The Postmodernism Turn

Religious fundamentalism, nationalism and new threats
Balkans Middle East Imperialist interventions

The Postmodernism Turn

Postmodern art shift from the modernist quest for a new world order
Cynical view of the past
End mark: Holocaust Shift in morality Product of the information age, high speed development in mass communications, molecular physics, space exploration, and biotechnology. Human knowledge and power beyond that of any other previous era.

The Postmodernism Turn

Postmodern art shift from the modernist quest for a new world order
Globalism (interdependence among all parts of the world) Media-shaped world culture

Liberation and Equality

Liberation and Equality Postwar era art could be valued in the light of the historical circumstances out of which it emerged. Two major types of liberation movements:
Racial and sexual independence Colonial nations to achieve political, economic, religious, and ethnic independence

Liberation and Equality

Liberation and Equality Colonial nations to achieve political, economic, religious, and ethnic independence
Former empires were unable to maintain the military forces Colonial subjects were fighting to free themselves from the rule of Western nations Ex. India under the Indian National Congress and the influence of Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948).

Liberation and Equality

Liberation and Equality Colonial nations to achieve political, economic, religious, and ethnic independence
Between 1944 and 1960 many nations fight to freed themselves from the Britain, France, United States, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy colonial rule. Vietnam War: was the longest war in United States history (1964-1975)
Cost the lives of 50,000 Americans and approx. 15 million Vietnamese.

Liberation and Equality

Liberation and Humanities in Latin America After the wars of independence, and after the European nations departed from Latin America in the early nineteenth century, the vast majority of Latin Americas (specially peasants and descendants of Natives) lived in poverty. The Latin American elites maintained their alliance with the financial and industrial interest of the First World. Inequality, exploitation, and underdevelopment

Liberation and Equality

Liberation and Humanities in Latin America Social reforms and revolutionary struggles to bring a change. Art: Diego Rivera Poetry: Pablo Neruda, United Fruit Co. Religion: Liberation theology - Camilo Torres (ELNColombia) Others Religious related to the cause of the people:
Ruben Blades: Padre Antonio (Monseor Oscar Romero, 1915-1980) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtjLNTJbBKQ Monseor Antulio Parrilla (1919-1994)

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Racial Equality The first blacks were brought to the British colonies in 1619. Thousands more were brought to work in forced labor (slavery) throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After the Emancipation proclamation in the U.S (1863) and the Thirteenth Amendment, they were freed. In Puerto Rico it was abolished in 1873.

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Racial Equality Life to African-American continued to be harsh.
Separated housing Separated schools Exclusion from voting Unequal employment

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Racial Equality: The Harlem Renaissance World War I brought to African-American new educational and employment opportunities. Migrations to the Northern states. Fear of black competition exploded in what became to be known as the bloody summer of 1919. Centered in Harlem, NY, between 1920 and 1940, the quest for racial equality and self-identity inspired an upsurge of creative expressions in the Arts. The Harlem Renaissance. Ex. Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Duke Ellington, etc.

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Racial Equality: The Civil Rights Movements High crime rates, illiteracy, and drug addiction among African-American population. Its great participation in the World War II efforts helped to fuel the pursue of equality. Leading the movement where activist as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) modeled his campaign of peaceful protest on the examples of Gandhi, demanding the enforcement of the equality promised in the Constitution.
Civil disobedience as a means of opposing injustice.

Other militant leader was Malcom X (1925-1965). Addressed more radical ideas:
Abandon aspirations of integration; create a black nation were black could live in dignity, and freedom from racism. These goals should be achieved by any means necessary.

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Racial Equality: African-American and Jazz One of the greatest contribution of African-American to world culture Jazz: a synthesis of diverse musical elements (European and African-American harmony, melody and tone of color) where the performers rather than the composers express its art. Blues, as a formative element in the evolution of jazz, had begun as a vocal rather than an instrumental genre.
Stemming from African songs forms and harmonics, it is an emotive type of individual expression for lamenting ones troubles, loneliness, and despair.

Louis Armstrong (1900-1971), Duke Ellington (1899-1974), Charlie Parker (1920-1955), Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993)

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Gender Equality Feminism: the principle advocating equal social, political, and economic rights for men and women. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) Virginia Woolfe (1882-1941): equal opportunity for education and economic advantage were essential.
Women could become powerful only by achieving financial and psychological independence from men. Freedom as a prerequisite for creativity.

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Gender Equality: Feminism: Origins could be traced back to fourteenth century Christine de Pisan Sor Juan Ins de la Cruz in Mexico (1651-1695). Redondillas: Hombre necios Hombres necios que acusis a la mujer, sin razn, sin ver que sois la ocasin de lo mismo que culpis; si con ansia sin igual solicitis su desdn, por qu queris que obren bien si las incitis al mal? Combats su resistencia y luego, con gravedad, decs que fue liviandad lo que hizo la diligencia

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Gender Equality Consciousness concerning the way sex is used as structuring principle in human culture and society. Gender determines how people behave and how they are regarded by others? Assumptions concerning gender and sexual roles of males and females are rooted in traditions. Like many other in twentieth century historical culture gender was challenged and reassessed.

Liberation and Equality

The Quest for Gender Equality Non traditional sexual orientations: LGTTB and the Stonewall Inn riot (June 1969, Greenwich Village-NY) Issues of human sexuality that explain why sexuality became so visible in the late twentieth century:
Increased sexual permissiveness The activity of the media Sexually explicit entertainment Appearance of an epidemic: AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)

The Information Age: Message and Meaning

The Information Age: Message and Meaning Shift from industrial to an information age. The tools of electronic technology have shrunk the distances between the inhabitants of the world community. More information is available to more people in less time. Books published between 1945 and 1970 equaled that issued during the 500 years period between the invention of the printing press and the end of World War I.

The Information Age: Message and Meaning The Information Explosion Tele vision. Tele (Greek) videre (Latin): far seeing
Common in the middle-class life in the West from the 1950 on. Quintessential example of the modern mass media. It transmit information instantaneously into homes across the face of the earth. Televised wars: Vietnam and Desert Storm

The Information Age: Message and Meaning The Information Explosion Computer. Information is essentially image oriented. Mainly nonverbal modes of communication, in contrast to linear mediums. As information is homogenized, it tends to become devalued: product and message may be sacrifice to process and medium.

The Information Age: Message and Meaning The Challenge of Globalism Interdependence of cultures and economies. Roots in nineteenth century industrial and commercial technologies brought the world together. The availability of plane traveling, satellite communication, and the Internet has accelerated the globalization process.
The Global Ecosystem

The Information Age: Message and Meaning

The Challenge of Globalism Our culture had developed increasing attention to the effects of bioscience and industrial technology upon the global environment and its inhabitants. Modern technology has brought vast benefits to humankind, while threatening the global environment. Industrial pollution contaminates rivers and oceans, global warming creates subtle changes in climate Population density on the planet (7,500 million). 0.2 seconds before midnight (10,000/4,500,000,000)

References: Fiero, G. K. (2011). The humanistic tradition, Book 6: The European renaissance, the Reformation, and the global encounter (6th. Ed). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Sherman, D & Salisbury, J. (2008). Civilizaciones de occidente. Vol II desde 1600. Mxico: McGraw Hill.