The Modern Revolution

This is the blog for the course The Modern Revolution (HUM 410/PHIL 304) at San Francisco State University for Spring 2008. The course covers philosophical issues of modernism/modernity, roughly from 1850 - 1945. We are reading Benjamin, Nietzsche, Kafka, and Robert Walser, and secondary works on modernism/modernity from Celeste Olalquiaga and Sanford Kwinter, as well as work by Michel Foucault on modern discipline and monstrosity. We will look at as much artwork and film as we can, particularly Marcel Duchamp, Dziga Vertov, Georges Méliès, Edweard Muybridge, Magritte, and others. We will, also, watch surprising films like Walter Murch's 1985 adaptation of the work of L. Frank Baum, Return to Oz (which we will read in light of modernity, commodification, and monstrosity, among much else). The blog was created for students to share their connections with the work of the course, including links, comments, and reflections.

images from left to right: Man Ray, "Gift" (1921); charles and ray eames "solar powered do-nothing machine" (1958); paul klee "twittering machine" (1922); poster for dziga vertov's film man with a movie camera (1929); paris arcades.