Ruins Of Modernity

Images of ruins may represent the raw realities created by bombs, natural disasters, or factory closings, but the way we see and understand ruins is not raw or unmediated. Rather, looking at ruins, writing about them, and representing them are acts framed by a long tradition. This unique interdisciplinary collection traces discourses about and representations of ruins from a richly contextualized perspective. In the introduction, Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle discuss how European modernity emerged partly through a confrontation with the ruins of the premodern past. Several contributors discuss ideas about ruins developed by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Georg Simmel, and Walter Benjamin. One contributor examines how W. G. Sebald’s novel The Rings of Saturn betrays the ruins erased or forgotten in the Hegelian philosophy of history. Another analyzes the repressed specter of being bombed out of existence that underpins post-Second World War modernist architecture, especially Le Corbusier’s plans for Paris. Still another compares the ways that formerly dominant white populations relate to urban-industrial ruins in Detroit and to colonial ruins in Namibia. Other topics include atomic ruins at a Nevada test site, the connection between the cinema and ruins, the various narratives that have accrued around the Inca ruin of Vilcashuamán, Tolstoy’s response in War and Peace to the destruction of Moscow in the fire of 1812, the Nazis’ obsession with imperial ruins, and the emergence in Mumbai of a new “kinetic city” on what some might consider the ruins of a modernist city. By focusing on the concept of ruin, this collection sheds new light on modernity and its vast ramifications and complexities. Contributors. Kerstin Barndt, Jon Beasley-Murray, Russell A. Berman, Jonathan Bolton, Svetlana Boym, Amir Eshel, Julia Hell, Daniel Herwitz, Andreas Huyssen, Rahul Mehrotra, Johannes von Moltke, Vladimir Paperny, Helen Petrovsky, Todd Presner, Helmut Puff, Alexander Regier, Eric Rentschler, Lucia Saks, Andreas Schönle, Tatiana Smoliarova, George Steinmetz, Jonathan Veitch, Gustavo Verdesio, Anthony Vidler

Sonic Ruins of Modernity shows how social, cultural and cognitive phenomena interact in the making and distribution of folksongs beyond their time. Through Judeo-Spanish (or Ladino) folksongs, the author illustrates a methodology for the interplay of individual memories, artistic initiatives, political and media policies, which ultimately shape “tradition” for the past century. He fleshes out in a series of case studies how folksongs can be conceived, performed and circulated in the post-tradition era – constituting each song as a “sonic ruin,” as an imagined place. At the same time, the book overall provides a unique perspective on the history of the Judeo-Spanish folksong.

American ruins have become increasingly prominent, whether in discussions of “urban blight” and home foreclosures, in commemorations of 9/11, or in postapocalyptic movies. In this highly original book, Nick Yablon argues that the association between American cities and ruins dates back to a much earlier period in the nation’s history. Recovering numerous scenes of urban desolation—from failed banks, abandoned towns, and dilapidated tenements to the crumbling skyscrapers and bridges envisioned in science fiction and cartoons—Untimely Ruins challenges the myth that ruins were absent or insignificant objects in nineteenth-century America. The first book to document an American cult of the ruin, Untimely Ruins traces its deviations as well as derivations from European conventions. Unlike classical and Gothic ruins, which decayed gracefully over centuries and inspired philosophical meditations about the fate of civilizations, America’s ruins were often “untimely,” appearing unpredictably and disappearing before they could accrue an aura of age. As modern ruins of steel and iron, they stimulated critical reflections about contemporary cities, and the unfamiliar kinds of experience they enabled. Unearthing evocative sources everywhere from the archives of amateur photographers to the contents of time-capsules, Untimely Ruins exposes crucial debates about the economic, technological, and cultural transformations known as urban modernity. The result is a fascinating cultural history that uncovers fresh perspectives on the American city.

This book maps the genesis and decline of a building thought by many to represent a radical break in Mendelsohn's thinking -- his first step towards a rational form of expression. The reevaluation of the building also provides an opportunity for a debate on the larger issue of the conservation of modern structures. What are we to make of buildings that no longer perform their intended function? Is there a way to carry out a project of conservation that is not a literal attempt to turn back the clock, to preserve a 'dead' monument? Through texts and speculative projects, Ruins of Modernity explores possible approaches to this increasingly acute problem. The endpiece -- a presentation of John McAslan's work on Mendelsohn and Chermayev's Bexhill Pavilion -- documents one actual solution.

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Acknowledgments p. xi Introduction p. 3 1 The Meaning of Tradition p. 8 2 Tradition Under Stress p. 20 3 Shaking the Foundations p. 40 4 Survivals and Fabrications p. 62 5 Rethinking Tradition p. 77 6 Reappropiating Tradition Through Its Traces p. 92 7 Subversive Genealogy p. 107 8 The Tactics of Tradition p. 120 9 Conclusion p. 131 Notes p. 137 Bibliography p. 159 Index p. 171.

Nothing in his rural New England upbringing could have prepared Colin Phelps for freshman year at an Ivy League college: the House Master crashes hall parties; public nudity is practically an intramural sport; and French intellectuals spouting arcane theories cast a spell over the undergraduates. Colin plunges into the hookup culture, competing with his brash, rule-breaking roommate. But as he soon discovers, the pursuit of transgression is fraught with unexpected pitfalls, and his suave pose must be stripped away if he is to find genuine freedom.

This book focuses on literal and metaphorical ruins, as they are appropriated and imagined in different forms of writing. Examining British and American literature and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the book begins in the era of industrial modernity with studies of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and Daphne Du Maurier. It then moves on to the significance of ruins in the twentieth century, against the backdrop of conflict, waste and destruction, analyzing authors such as Beckett and Pinter, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Leonard Cohen. The collection concludes with current debates on ruins, through discussions of Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht, as well as reflections on the refugee crisis that take the ruin beyond the text, offering new perspectives on its diverse legacies and conceptual resources.