Change, Time and Sociology

Abstract

This article readdresses the polarity of discourses against and in favor of modernity. It argues that by limiting themselves to the sphere peculiar to culture, these discourses neglect other social spheres that are equally constitutive of modern society. Both critics and apologists of modernity eventually create a distortion between understandings of modernity and social structures. After reassessing critical assumptions of classical sociology and the affirmation of modernity within Brazilian sociology, the author explores the shifting privilege of future and past times within studies of modern and contemporary art.