Modernism

This paper aims at shedding light on the concept of postmodernism، and its implications in the TESOL. Postmodern philosophy as a prevalent concept and a hot buzzword in philosophy، science، and art is believed to have influenced the TESOL theoretically in some ways. The elements of postmodernism including: constructivism، subjectivism، relativism، localism، and pragmatism are found to have been applied in the TESOL to the concept of the demise of the methods، more focus on styles، strategies، and multiple intelligences، chaos/complexity theory and critical theories. But in practice، in developing countries the TESOL still lives in the modern era.

Literature is the aesthetic manifestation of language. It is ‘as old as human language and as new as tomorrow’s sunrise.’ This paper explores the interrelationships between language and literature from 600 AD to the present day. The grammar of present-day English is closely related to that of Old English with the same tense formation and word orders. The verse unit is a single line and its organizing device is ‘alliteration’. The range of Chaucer’s English did much to establish English as a national language. The writers of the Elizabethan period reshaped the literary language by borrowing foreign words and by coining new expressions and figures of speech. Shakespeare’s language and modern English have enough in common so that historians consider that they both belong to the same stage in the history of English. Milton attempted to reinvent the English language through his Paradise Lost. The writers of the seventeenth century developed a prose style that could bear the weight of the most serious and complex ideas. Then, the writers of the eighteenth century devoted themselves to developing out a formal, polished, and “correct” style of expression. Wordsworth and Coleridge intended to purify and renew the literary language and make it closer to the everyday speech of the ordinary people. Modernism tried to articulate a representation of the world and the way of seeing it through complexities of mind using the spoken rather than the formal language.

Compared to traditional media, an important characteristic of modern media is that it taps on electric and electronic means and it has extensive coverage. The most important characteristic of traditional media is that it creates a face-to-face communication between addresser and addressees. Modern media has its roots in modernism and is a direct consequence of modern societies. Modern media especially visual media represent the dominant values in the society and has altered the function of family toward more individualism, and individual behavioral patterns. Under the influence of modern media, families are losing their traditional function and are experiencing new functions. A function geared toward more individualism and catering for the individual needs of family members, a function that challenged the traditional dominant values of the family. Among all the contributing factors, modern media in their various forms and comprehensive advertisements, have played a pivotal role in internalizing characteristics of modern world and specially individualism among family members. The current study aims to investigate the new functions of family in accordance with the role played by visual media in the modern society.

Kant's demystification is meant to put away any metaphysical and revealed elements from ethics and religion. Kant, fulfilling this, first argues that metaphysical questions of reason, from theoretical aspect, have no certain answers. In practical reason, he establishes his moral foundations, based on own human being without any referring to metaphysical bases. In fact, Kant places human being as the base, legislator and finally the end of ethics, so that the totality of morality is depended on itself him/her and there is no moral reality out of our humanly understanding. Kant, then, by confirming the necessity of rational religion, believes that the age of revealed religions have been expired, since they were belonged to the childhood age of human being’s reason, while in Kant’s rational religion, this is human being’s subjective intellect that defines the nature and function of God. Therefore, for Kant’s moral and rational religion, there is no credibility for affairs like miracles, blessings and prayers, since they indicate religious misguidance. In Kant’s rational pure religion, the religion is relied on human being’s pure reason in which his/her reason is the only criterion of religious beliefs. Therefore, for Kant, religion means recognizing our duties as divine judgments, and that such religion pertains to our mundane life not for worshiping God in order to get his satisfaction or benefitting his grace. In short, Kant’s religion and morality are totally depended on our humanly and earthy rationality and understanding, and that there is no mystery out of our humanly willing. So the mysteries that are claimed by revealed religions are meaningless, since our reason, itself, determines the nature, function and virtues of God, moral axioms and religious beliefs.

Modernism is one of the most significant and informative books written in the field of literary theory and criticism. It is an easy-access, wide-ranging and efficient book that tries to explore different aspects of Modernism and its neighboring concepts. Despite its limited space, it has fully rendered the humongous burden of Modernism and demonstrating its various aspects. The book comprises an introduction and three main chapters. It starts off with a set of definitions for Romance, Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Childs endeavors to approach the discussion in a comparative light, particularly the comparison between Modernism and Postmodernism in the introduction. The book is more concerned with the close analysis of movements in contexts and literary works rather than entangling with pure abstract definitions. The discussion about Modernism is accompanied by adjacent movements such as Postmodernism and Realism and marginalized points are included as well. Instead of coming up with rock-solid definitions, Childs seeks to look for traces of each movement in the other and how these terms are overlapped and intertwined.

The problem of "alienation" and the "alienated man" is one of the most attractive features of the critique of modernity. Ali Shariati, the contemporary Iranian theorist who was highly concerned with the critique of both tradition and modernity, introduced the idea of a "third way". As the main cause for decadence, defining and defying alienation was at the core of Shariati's intellectual agenda. In this paper, we will explain his view on alienation and his recommended solution which invites peoples of the third world to return to their very identity. Then, some critical arguments raised by his critics will be explored and assessed.

Time and perception are two major concerns of Woolf in many of her novels and short stories. Woolf as a modernist writer often tries in her fiction to find an epistemological solution to the problems of mortality and immortality, appearance and reality and diversity and unity and she succeeds, I think, by taking on a kind of perception that is intuitive and temporal. For her, true perception is time-bound, but like Bergson she divides time into mechanical and organic one. In her writing, she often associates symbolically the former with death and aridity and the latter with life and fertility, presenting them in the images, to name but a few of keyboard of a piano or alphabetical letters and tree or green shawl and dress, respectively. Evidently, in her views and the solution, she finds to the problems of time and perception Woolf is influenced by Bergson whose theory of time has also influenced so many other modernists. This paper elaborates on the relationship between time and perception in the works of Woolf, especially in her two major novels To the Lighthouse (1927) and Mrs Dalloway (1924) and her short story “An Unwritten Novel” (1921).

The present paper seeks to address and examine the literary movements, trends, and schools in Kurdish literature, and to account for their true representations in Kurdish literary works. According to contemporary Kurdish literary historians, Kurdish literature before the era of the Renewal is referred to as the classical literature; Romanticism appeared simultaneously with the Renewal, and realism was manifested afterwards. Is it appropriate to refer to these trends and periods in the Kurdish context as classicism, romanticism, and realism? The present research argues that these terms applied to Kurdish literature were introduced into Kurdish letters and culture as the immediate result of the influence of European letters and trends. The central argument of this study is that Kurdish literary movements and the historical epochs assigned to them by the scholars are not the same as what is observed in the history of French and English literature. This study considers the whole body of Kurdish written literature into three distinct periods and sections that are the ancient literature, also called ‘the literature of Diwan’, from the beginning to the early twentieth century, ‘the literature of the renewal period’, from the 1900s to the mid twentieth century, and ‘the modern and contemporary literature’, from the 1960s to the present.

The progression of culture and literature in the three subsequent eras of Modernism, Postmodernism and Post Postmodernism since the late-20th-century can be considered as one of the vivid factors that has led to the chain of transformation of man. In Modernism, the superiority of authentic and governmental power over people was dominant and later in the era of Postmodernism or the late capitalism, the notion of fragmentation controlled the life of the people; but in the third one, Post Postmodernism, a freshgenus of humanism was introduced by innovative authors such as David Foster Wallace who, in his philosophy of writing, illustrates not only the pain and limitations of man but also the healing instruments. Philosophically speaking, through the critical gates of Wallace’s philosophy, the subjectivity of man is given a niche, and thanks to the opportunity he has gained in the social networks, he could have made it possible to create a type of sharing and mutual communication amongst the fragmented individuals. That is to say, all alienated and limited individuals can have the role of active agents, communicators, and producers instead of being passive watchers, readers, and one-way communicators organized by the structures of the past eras. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate David Foster Wallace’s (1962-2008) trilogy—The Broom of the System (1987), Infinite Jest (1996), and The Pale King (2011)—according to his philosophy of Post postmodernism.

Modern architecture has vital impact in Nigerian architecture even though there are some socio-cultural and religious factors and elements of traditional architecture and use of traditional materials and principles of design that still exist. This paper will be discussing on how modern architecture failed in the aspect the of conservation and restoration of palace buildings which are the focal points within the walled cities that is directly captured as significant historical buildings. Basically the palace serves as a whole administrative and non-administrative building based on its division into various functional spaces. Moreover, the palace building construction as well as changes and fortifications occurred overtime which is seen directly from the facades. This periods includes; vernacular pre-colonial and post-colonial period. Therefore the research illustrates how imported modern architecture affected the palaces of the country at large. For this paper two particular palaces namely; Hadejia and Kano emirs palace in the Northern region dominated by the Hausa/Fulani’s will be used for the comparative and descriptive criticism. Relevant information will be collected from the buildings and then from the findings, analysis of the building based on some certain parameters such as; building location, period of construction, and materials used will be considered and most of all the criticism of the failure of modernist architects in terms of conservation and restoration of the two ancient palace buildings will be judged based on the final view point which will imply the trends of modernism in Nigerian historical buildings.

Overviewing the current literature on Western and Islamic orientations to English language education and illuminating the advantages and challenges of each orientation, this study endeavored to critically examine English language teaching in the context of Iran. In effect, this study elaborated on modernist, postmodernist, and Islamic orientations to language teaching. In tandem, this critical examination initiated from the modernist orientation because this orientation constituted the basis of contemporary academic disciplines. The findings revealed that there exists a strong similarity between postmodernist and Islamic orientations, when Islam is studied as an educational paradigm rather than a political issue. Moreover, the critical examination of the relevant studies on the context of Iran showed the prevalence of the native speaker ideology, systematicity, and standardisation as manifestations of the modernist orientation leading to unequal Englishes. In reality, unequal Englishes can be considered as a colonial enterprise illegitimizing non-native speakers and downplaying local varieties. Analyzing the concept of unequal Englishes, we have also argued that there is a real need to establish a dialogue across postmodernist and Islamic orientations to challenge power relations and foreground knowing as an act of identity. Accordingly, we called for an ontological turn in English language education in Iran, which revolves around super-diversity and perceives language as a practice situated in a social-cultural-historical context.

The encounter of Iranians with the modernism of the West happened for the first time during the constitutional period and through familiarization with the events and political technologies that happened in Russia, Japan, and Turkey. According to what Gadamer says, according to their political, social, economic, mental, and cultural structures, Iranians have received an understanding of modernism that is appropriate to their existential conditions, an understanding that stands as an application, and in response to the Iranians' question about the application of modernism to their lives. This article attempts to compare the epistemic foundations of both sides with a descriptive critical analytical method to show that the due to the structural differences that existed in the epistemic system of Iran and the West during the constitutional period is that it was very difficult to understand modernism in Iran and therefore, instead of bringing modernism into the country, Iranians have settled for some political technologies. Political technologies are considered a salve for their countless pains.

The paper offers a distinctive reading of Popper’s work, suggesting that his Logic of Scientific Discovery (LScD) might be re-interpreted in the light of his Open Society. Indeed, Popper can be interpreted as criticising certain aspects of his first book, and as a result improving upon them, in his second. It suggests translating what Popper says about ‘conventions’ into his later vocabulary of ‘social institutions’. Looking back, I believe that Popper never intended the language of conventions and decisions to be read individualistically. I remain unsure whether Popper was himself quite as clear about this as he could have been.  My reading makes Popper a pioneer in the sociology of science. Scientific institutions are arenas of political power; but Popper did not discuss the structure and inter-relations of the social institutions of science, or offer a politics of science in the context of his methodology. What is missing from the skeletal sociology of LScD is the politics. We could put it in Popperian terms this way: scientific institutions are both open and closed. They are closed, firmly, to the inexpert, to the non-members; supposedly they are open to the qualified, provided the prerogatives of seniority and leadership are acknowledged. Despite these shortcomings, Popper’s critical and rational approach and his insistence on openness and intellectual honesty are still important today.

Postmodernism represents skepticism toward metanarratives and universal ideologies that dominated the modernist era. The study focuses on three key postmodernist concepts - alternative assessment, process syllabi, and self-directed learning. Alternative assessment emphasizes evaluating the learning process over summative testing. Process syllabi focus on the learning experience rather than rigid outcomes. Self-directed learning enables student responsibility in setting learning goals and processes. This paper examined the effects of postmodernist educational concepts on improving Iranian EFL learners’ autonomy. A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design was utilized with 60 intermediate level Iranian EFL students divided into an experimental and control group (n=30 each). The experimental group received instruction utilizing the three postmodernist concepts over 14 weeks, while the control group received traditional modernist instruction. Autonomy was measured using a validated questionnaire before and after the intervention. The results showed the experimental group demonstrated significant increases in autonomy compared to the control group. Paired sample t-tests revealed significant differences between pre-test and post-test autonomy for the experimental group across all three postmodern concepts - alternative assessment, process syllabi, and self-directed learning. This suggests postmodernist concepts that decentralize instruction and emphasize student process over outcomes can enhance Iranian EFL learners’ self-direction and responsibility for language acquisition. The study implies EFL syllabus designers and instruction should transition to postmodern models centered on individualized assessment, flexible syllabi, and student-guided learning to boost autonomy. Further research can expand sample sizes and explore additional postmodernist concepts across diverse demographics.