Culture in the transitions to modernity: seven pillars of a new research agenda

Abstract

How did cultural dynamics help bring about the societies we now recognize as modern? This article constructs seven distinct models for how structures of signification and social meaning participated in the transitions to modernity in the West and, in some of the models, across the globe. Our models address: (1) the spread, via imitation, of modern institutions around the world (memetic replication); (2) the construal, by socio-cultural forces and by state organizations, of the modern citizensubject (social subjectification); (3) the continual search for new meanings to replace traditional religious meaning-systems (compensatory reenchantment); (4) repeated attempts, in modern revolutions, to remake society completely, according to a utopian vision (ideological totalization); (5) the cultural origins and social consequences of scientific and humanistic worldviews (epistemic rift); (6) the gendered politics of state formation (patriarchal supercession); (7) the invention and production of race in the colonial encounter (racial recognition). We explicate the models in reverse chronological order, because in our synthesis, we argue that the original modern break results from a dynamic combination of racial recognition, patriarchal supercession, and epistemic rift; these changes set the stage for the four other processes we theorize. In addition to our synthesis, we also consider, from a more neutral perspective, the kinds of causal arguments upon which these models tend to rely, and thus explicate the analytical undergirding for the application of any of these models to empirical research on transitions to modernity. Throughout the article, we consider how these models might, and might not, mesh with other families of explanation, such as the politico-economic.

Optimism of the Will. Antonio Gramsci Takes in Max Weber

“…This is no quick fix or cheap self-help advice; it entails a profound questioning of the center-periphery logic of colonial and post-colonial global hegemony. Re-enchantment requires, in the first place, undoing the paternalistic, diligent administration of "politically engaged" artistic practices-which include mining local arts as an appendix of the Western canon [241]-and therefore re-inscribing the modernist logic of patriarchal supercession [242]. In the second place, we should humbly explore creative practices cultivated at the margins of, and in response to, Weber's anhedonic capitalism [107].…”

Chains of Power and Their Representation

“…This threat was made real in the betrayal of the republic traced by Du Bois in the post–Civil War United States, his sociology of the relationship between slavery and democracy (Du Bois 2007:151). Theoretically speaking, Du Bois deployed an understanding of publicity and profanation as aspects of recognition and misrecognition foreign to the Marxist tradition (Fanon 2008; Reed and Adams 2011:260–62).…”

Phosphors Ba2LaTaO6:Mn4+ and its alkali metal charge compensation for plant growth illumination

“…However, 4 A 2g ! 2 T 1g was embedded in the tail of 4 A 2g ! 4 T 1g at 437 nm due to the weak spin-forbidden transition [27].…”

“…As shown in Figure 7, the ground state of 4 F can usually be split into ground state 4 The PLE band of Mn 4+ ions is endowed with spin-permissive transitions of 4 T energy levels ( 4 A 2g ! 4 T 1g , 2 T 2g and 4 T 2g ).…”

“…The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been testing the efficiency of adding space food to the space station. The results showed that plants are affected by the red, green, and blue parts of the visible spectrum [4]. Phytochrome is a kind of pigment protein in plants that can adjust the absorption of red light and the conversion of far-red light.…”