Crises, Revolutions, and Recurrences as Modernist Strategies
Crises, Revolutions, and Recurrences as Modernist Strategies

Summary/Abstract: Are there any crises outside of modernism, or is it a notion or event of modernity itself? Several crises, in the eyes of historians, opened the door to possibilities for new efforts without making the older strategies obsolete. In the era of postmodernism, it seemed to be a common practice to make fun of those highly evaluated temporal schemes, like revolutions and crises, which eroded their use. Labeling temporality turned out to be an interplay between schisms and discontinuities instead of considering time permanent and linear. However, as the label of postmodernism became suspicious, different kinds of modernisms started to have an effect again. From a theoretical perspective, it is handy to refer to the problem of crisis in the modernist philosophical tradition. Philosophers like Husserl, Adorno, and Habermas made their way of introducing crisis as a productive possibility to change the simple flow of time. Unlike revolutions, crises can bear the importance of having something in common with the departed patterns. Thus, the recurring elements of what had to be overcome turned out to be adhered to in previous periods. In my paper, I seek the chance to regard these temporal ruptures as core structures of modernism. The crisis that tears historical moments apart helps us to understand how literary modernism can handle competitive patterns like tradition and innovation, uneven endeavors, and development.

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