modernity | Exploring Latin America

A new dealer, same game? – week 9

The twentieth century brought a new international culture, a new dynamic to which Latin American nations and peoples would have to adjust to and engage in. In the stead of traditional European domination, a new ‘exchange’ emerged with the United States of America – one that would be contrasted with the old imperialist European hegemony. The USA described itself as anti-imperial, and insisted on a new kind of relationship with the ‘outside world’ for Latin America. However, as we have seen this week, this professed divergence between European and USA…read more

Who does modernity serve? – week 7

Posted by jacob fischer-schmidt in Week 7

What is modernity? From our standpoint in the internet age, the technological ‘miracles’ of the telegraph and the ‘horseless carriage’ can seem ridiculous at best. However, what began to emerge in the later part of the nineteenth and continuing into the twentieth century was a globalized utopia that became named modernity. Modernity became a cultural ideal, characterized in political (liberal democracy), economic (industrialization, global trade), social (family units, institutionalized education) qualities, as well as other hallmarks of a ‘modern’ society. An underlying question remains: who manufactured this cultural ideal that…read more