Modernity typically refers to an historical era, roughly defined as a post-traditional or post-medieval period beginning Renaissance (ca. 14thβ17th Centuries), characterized by a move from feudalism (or agrarianism) toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance (Barker 2005, 444)
Conceptually, modernity relates to the modern era and to modernism, but forms a distinct concept. Whereas the Enlightenment (ca. 1650β1800) invokes a specific movement in Western philosophy, modernity tends to refer only to the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism. Modernity may also refer to tendencies in intellectual culture, particularly the movements intertwined with secularisation and post-industrial life, such as Marxism, existentialism, and the formal establishment of social science. In context, modernity has been associated with cultural and intellectual movements of 1436β1789 and extending to the 1970s or later (Toulmin 1992, 3β5).
Read more about Modernity: Related Terms, Phases of Modernity, Modernity Defined
Famous quotes containing the word modernity:
“The critical method which denies literary modernity would appearand even, in certain respects, would bethe most modern of critical movements.”
—Paul Deman (19191983)