Midterm Report

Midterm Report
Austin Emerson
What did I set out to do? For my directed study, I originally set out on a multi-disciplinary quest to "study societies", such as those that existed during historical highlights like The Enlightenment, The Renaissance, Modernism, and, in conclusion, the present. I began by studying Modernism, mostly because it had the most information, and I quickly found myself embroiled in a previously unheard-of sea of academia. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Luckily, I was hooked up with a book, The Modern Mind, which seemed to objectively render the period of Modernism.
Weeks slid by and I still didn't feel like I was anywhere near the conclusion of my research into Modernism. So I changed my project, eliminating the potential murkiness of studying the Renaissance and Enlightenment and focusing on the 20th century. Even this was a huge undertaking, and I have not really come to any solid conclusions that I have full faith in. But I have learned an immense amount of information, at the very least. I now have a vague familiarity with nearly every intellectual figure since 1900, and I would probably dominate in an "Ideas of the 20th Century" trivia contest.
Where am I now? Good question. Well, I prematurely cut off my studies of Modernism, or rather, delayed them. I felt like The Modern Mind was merely imparting factual information rather than giving me any useful insight. I plan to return to Modernism, and examine it as one imbued with the retrospective knowledge of Postmodernism, which is what I am currently studying.
Postmodernism is unique in that its defining feature is a lack of definition. Its scholars seem to schizophrenically both desire a systematic regime for the definition of postmodernism and at the same time define it on such terms as "uncertainty, indeterminacy, indefinability." From the perspective of a relative outsider (myself), the practitioners of PoMo seem torn between anarchy and order, stuck in a mindset halfway between Modernism and some new sensibility. They want to patch up the fragments of Postmodernism – the disparate elements, verily, the entire spectrum of culture contained in the chronos from 1939 onward – into a unified whole, yet, like patching up a hole in a bucket with chicken wire, they go forth in doing this with the conviction that you can't define Postmodernism. In this I see a tendency toward the certainies of Modernism. It seems our postmodern scholars haven't completely broken free of it.
The primary question that has been in the back of the mind throughout all this research is “what am I going to have to show for all my research once these months are over with? Despite the brilliant luxury of time afforded to me, I still feel like I'm racing the clock in many ways. Which is probably not inaccurate. I've undertaken a huge project, and an hour and a half a day is a relatively short period of time to digest such a wealth of information, the result of a hundred years' worth of scholarship.
I set out on this project with the assumption that something happened during the dawning of the 20th century that changed man irrevocably. I'm not sure if I can still believe in that.
One thing I would like to do is return to reality a little bit. I spent most of last week reading Ihab Hassan, who is an amazing writer–almost Coltrane-esque in his wordplay–, but one whose theories remain firmly entrenched in the vague and theoretical. One thing that has separated me from a lot of the other scholars I've read is that I am constantly seeking evidence behind claims. I know all too well how a writer's personal perceptions can influence pronouncements they make on the rest of society, and I refuse to fall into this trap. And, I haven't found many answers. Ms. Snider was at a loss when I asked her if there were elements of postmodernism reflected in the current popular culture, and the writers I've read haven't given much concrete evidence either. I still want to stick to the sociological element of my project, the more scientific, grounded-in-hard-facts element, and that is what I plan to be involved in the coming weeks.