Culture, Science, and Technology, 1900 to Present

Question 1

~Modern period

Answer 1

● Considiered in cultural and intelletual terms to have lasted roughly from the 1870s through the 1940s

Question 2

~Contemporary era/postmodern era

Answer 2

● Characterized by even more unpredictability, relativism, and unconventionality than before
● The notion of an artistic and literary canon (a universally agreed-upon body of great works) has been called into doubt by postmodern thinking, in keeping with its rejection fo the notion that objective truth exists

Question 3

~Multiculturalism

Answer 3

● The interaction and fusion of hte world’s various ethnic, artistic, and intellectual traditions

Question 4

~Mass media technology

Answer 4

● Their exuberancea nd energy contrasted with the anxiety and uncertainty expressed by most high art
● Radio, film, teleision and the inexpensive production of books brought music, drama, literature and information into the lives of a greater variety of people

Question 5

~Information/digital revolution

Answer 5

● Caused by computer

● Has vastly altered life in the 1990s and beyond

Question 6

~High art (West)

Answer 6

● Characterized by bold experimentation and the distortion, even abandonment, of traditional norms and conventions

Question 7

~Western art (first half of the 1900s)

Answer 7

● Marked by uncertainty and pessimism
● Despair caused by WWI brought an ever greater sense of anxiety tot he cultural forefront
● Europe’s political and economic comedown and the unsettling philosophical implications of recent scientific insights deepened the gloom during the interwar period

Question 8

~All Quiet on the Western Front

Answer 8

● Eloquent accounts of the wartime experience
● By Erich Maria Remarque
● Describes the dehumanizing effects of hte trench warfare

Question 9

~War poets

Answer 9

● Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Owen, and others

● Questioned traditional patriotism as an adequate justification for the midless butchery caused by the war

Question 10

~Dada movement

Answer 10

● Avant-garde artists
● Exhibited in Europe and New York during the war
● Used shock and abusurdism, both to push the boundaires of what should be considered art and to highlight the irrationality of WWI, which they opposed
● “Fountain”: the bowl of a urinal irrevenrently turned into a sculpture by Frenchman Marcel Duchamp

Question 11

~Sigmund Freud

Answer 11

● Called into question whether anything was fully knowable or whether any objective truths or standards existed

Question 12

~The Decline of hte West

Answer 12

● Nonfiction book in interwar Europe

● By philospher Oswald Spengler

Question 13

~T.S. Elliot and Franz Kafka

Answer 13

● Their prose and poetry dealt with dehumanization in an industrialized, bureaucratized era

Question 14

~Stream-of-consciousness prose

Answer 14

● Virginia Woolfe, Marcel Proust and James Joyce

● Attempted to capture, almost in Freudian style, the workings of the human mind on the witten page

Question 15

~Abstract painters

Answer 15

● Such as Pablo Picasso

● Distorted reality to demonstrate that things could be seen from a variety of perspective

Question 16

~Surrealists

Answer 16

● Like Salvador Dali

● Placed realistic objects in unrealistic situations to confuse the viewer’s sense of reality

Question 17

~Existentialism

Answer 17

● Rose to prominence after WWII
● Championed by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and hte French philosophers Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre
● Proposed that humanity was not guided by any deity, special destiny, or objective morality
● Alone in the universe, the individual must learn to create a worthwhile, ethical existence for themselves without the benfit of religion or hte hope of any life beyong hte earthly one

Question 18

~Art in non-Western world

Answer 18

● In addition to maintiaining their own styles, non-Western authors and artists hae adopted Western forms of writing, paiting, and composing, often modigfying them with elements from their own culture

Question 19

~Rabindranath Tagore

Answer 19

● Prior to WWII, the Indian poet was the first non-Westerner to win the Nobel Price for literature
● Dazzled readers worlwide with lyrical verses inspried by Hindu mysticism

Question 20

~Lu Xun/Hsun

Answer 20

● China’s author wrote hard-hitting stories about his country’s economic domination by outside powers, and also the governemnt’s lack of concern for lower-class commoners

Question 21

~Negritude movement

Answer 21

● Stating int he 1930s
● Inspired by the African-Ameircan poets of the Harlem Renaissance nad hte Marxism percoloating in interwar Paris
● United African and Caribbean writer from French colonies in their opposition to European imperialism an din htier pride in being black

Question 22

~Diego Rivera

Answer 22

● The Mexican artist who created powerful murals expressing the plight of the working poor, as well as of Mayans and other indigenous peoples

Question 23

~Frida Kahlo

Answer 23

● Rivera’s wife

● Remains famous in her own right for her feminist themes and her bold use of colors

Question 24

~Chinua Achebe

Answer 24

● Looks backward to the impact of British imperialism and missionary activity on Nigeria’s Ibo (Igbo) people in (1958)
● One of the first African novels to gain an international audience

Question 25

~Anita Desai

Answer 25

● Deals with women's lives in (1963)

Question 26

~Yukio Mishima

Answer 26

● Japan's prolific novelist and traditional nationalist ● Opposed what he saw as the destruction of Japan's cultural values ● His ritual, samurai-style suicide in 1970 elevated him to cult status

Question 27

~Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allend

Answer 27

● Latin American authos who pioneered magical realism | ● A richly textured style featuring intricately detailed storytelling

Question 28

~Naguib Mahfouz

Answer 28

● Islamic novelist who won the nobel Prize for his , a vibrant portrait of postwar Egypt ● Stabbed by an Islamic extremist in 1984

Question 29

~Salman Rushdie

Answer 29

● Indian-born and English-speaking author ● Wrote (1988), an irreverent treatment of Islamic orthodoxy ● Was declared a heretic by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who openly called for his assassination and forced him into hiding for years

Question 30

~High-art cinema

Answer 30

● Film directors such as Russia's Sergei Eisenstein and Frtiz Lang dominated the cinema during the interwar years ● Postwar era has witnessed masterpieces by Weden's deeply existential Ingmar Bergman, Italy's Fedrico Fellini, noted for hise xtravagance and fondness for farce and Japan's Akira Kurosawa, popularizer of the amurai epic

Question 31

~Jazz

Answer 31

● Flourished in early 1900s America, particularly during the Harlem Renaissance ● Considered to have crossed the line between mass culture and high art

Question 32

~Cabaret culture

Answer 32

● Flourished in Weimar Germany before 1933 ● Featuring jazz music and witty social commentary in muscial dramas co-created by Kurt Weill and the Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht

Question 33

~Modern Olympic Games

Answer 33

● Created in 1896 to foster peace ● Have been used to make statements of strength or to wage symbolic battles - Hitler's Berlin Olympics in 1936 and Beijing's summer Olympics in 2008

Question 34

~World Cup soccer tournaments

Answer 34

● Active since 1930 | ● Galvanize audiences worldwide every four years

Question 35

~Cricket

Answer 35

● Played wherever the British established colonies

Question 36

~Propaganda

Answer 36

● Dictatorships have freely employed mass media as mouthpieces for propaganda and indoctrination or brainwashing

Question 37

~Coca-colonization

Answer 37

● Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima condemed Americanizing effecgs of mass culture

Question 38

~Global village

Answer 38

● A prediction that seems to have been partly realized, thank s to the internet ● In the 1960s, Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan gained fame for his argument that modern communications technology would create a global village ● Fulfilled by the mixing and interaction of global styles nad traditions (multicultralism)

Question 39

~Synthetic forms of spirituality

Answer 39

● Combining elements of old religions with new beliefs | ● Ex) Hare Krishna movement, Falun Gong and many varieties of new age faiths int he West

Question 40

~Hare Krishna movement

Answer 40

● Arising in New York in the mid-1960s and borrowing chants and scriptures from Hinduism

Question 41

~Falun Gong

Answer 41

● A meditative and martial-arts oriented practice orignating in China in the 1990s ● Much to the displeasure of hte communist regime, reviving aspects of Daosit and Buddhist worship

Question 42

~Religious differences

Answer 42

● Frequently aggravated or contributed to ethnic and political disputes, asin the Turkish massacre of Christian Armenians, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Indo-Pakistani violence, the Catholic-Protestant troubles in northern Ireland and the Yugoslave wars of the 1990s

Question 43

~Religious fundamentalism

Answer 43

● Proven politically influential in many places during the 1900s and 2000s

Question 44

~Christian fundamentalism

Answer 44

● In North America has systemnatically adavanced right-wing voting preferences in electoral politics, and in the form of evangelical Protestantism, it has made major inroads into Africa nad Latin America, the latter long monopolized religiously by the Catholic Church

Question 45

~Islamic fundamentalism

Answer 45

● Driven political trends in the Middle East ● Generally in opposition to Westernization and at times to modernization in general ● In South Asia, it has caused tensions between Hindus and Muslims and also between Hindus and Skihs

Question 46

~Liberation theology

Answer 46

● A doctrine that arose during the 1950s and 1960s among Catholic priests in Latin America ● Arguing that Christ's teachings mandated a preferential option for the poor ●Maintained that it was their duty to support impoverished communities against oppressive governments and elite classes, even if doing so meant opposing the hcurch hierarchy or cooperating with radical or Marxist activists

Question 47

~John Paul II

Answer 47

● Anti-communist pope in the mid-1980s ● The Vatican cracked down on liberation theology, but the nation of combining liberal Christianity with social-justice activism remains alive thanks to the movement's influence

Question 48

~Albert Einstein

Answer 48

● Developed the theory of relativity, making the first major changes to the system of science and mathematics that had been synthesized by Isaac Newton

Question 49

~Quantu physics

Answer 49

● Also in the early 1900s | ● Major figures here included Maz Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Enrico Fermi

Question 50

~Rocketry and space science

Answer 50

● Emerged in the 1900s, following the birth of powered flight in 1903, courtesy of the Wright brothers ● Pioneers included the American Robert Goddard and Russia's Konstantin Tsiulkovsky ● matured during WWII ● Made satellite telecommunications ossible

Question 51

~Space race

Answer 51

● Soviets became hte first to put a human-made object into space (Sputnik in 1957) and the first human being into space (Yuri Gagarin 1961) ● Americans first succeeded in landing ont he moon (1969) ● Encouraged USSR's work in developing orbital laboratories and US's development of hte space shuttle

Question 52

~Polio vaccine

Answer 52

● Jonas Salk, followed by Albert Sabin's oral vaccine | ● Both in the 1950s

Question 53

~Penicillin

Answer 53

● Discovery in 1928 by Scotland's Alexander Fleming | ● Began the development of antibiotics

Question 54

~Genetics

Answer 54

● Came into being during the late 1800s by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel ● James Watson and Francis Crick led the deciphering of the molecular structure of DNA in 1953

Question 55

~Neurology

Answer 55

● In the 2000s has made astounding progress in gaining previously unimaginable insights into the workings of the brain

Question 56

~Computer

Answer 56

● Invention during and hosrtly after WWII, notably by the British mathematician Alan Turing

Question 57

~Personal computer

Answer 57

● The availability and affordability caused an information/digital revolution that altered the way people ocmmunicate, trasact business, entertain themselves, nad work ● Beginning in the 1980s by innovators like Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Steve Joba

Question 58

~Internet

Answer 58

● Key to the development of information revolution ● Originally created int he 1960s for US defense purposes ● BY the end of the 1990s,a World Wide Web had connected millions of users, and it continues to grow, particualarly with the rise of wireless technolgoy and mobile communications

Question 59

~Wireless technology and mobil ecommunications

Answer 59

● Allows access to the Internet and to social media via handheld devices like cellphones

Question 60

~What were the common themes in non-Western art after WWII?

Answer 60

● Decolonization ● Difficulty of resisting Western (espcially US) cultral hegemony ●Opposition to politically repressive regimes

Question 61

~What wre mass media used for?

Answer 61

● Used by creative performer,s musicians, screenwriters, and filmmakers to create genuinely great artworks ● Create products aiimed at a popular audience for purposes of entertainment, and critics of amss/popular culture have argued that it tends to cheapen art by catering to the tastes of lowest common denominator ● Gave rise to the international populatirty of sporting events ● Used for political nad corporate purposes ● Westernization and multiculturalism

Question 62

~What products were poularized by mass media?

Answer 62

● Disney ● Hollywood films ● Rock-and-roll and popular music ● Press coverage related to popular technologies like aviation and rockets and automobiels

Question 63

~How were sporting events intertwined with national pride?

Answer 63

● Teams from South Asia and Caribbean routinely beat the British in international competition ● Cuban, Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans often beat baseball teams from the US ● A point of pride

Question 64

~How was propaganda used in Nazi Germany?

Answer 64

● In Nazi Germany, the brilliant filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl boosted support for Hitler's regime with visually impressive but thoroughly propagandistic moves like (1935)

Question 65

~How was propaganda used in Stalinist Russia?

Answer 65

● Starting in the 1930s, Stalinist Russia used both the artistic community and the mass media to churn out relentlessly optimistic artworks in teh style of socialist realism, which featured heroic images of productive peasants, tireless factory workers, and stalwart soldiers and pilots, all toiling happily under Stalin's benevolent leadership

Question 66

~How was propaganda used in free societies?

Answer 66

● People are brainwashed for hte advertisement of goods and the earning of profits, with mass media functioning as powerful tools in the hands of business interests

Question 67

~How did American culture come to dominate post-WWII society?

Answer 67

● American jazz ● America dominated world markets and mass-media technolgy, Dinsney, McDonalds, and Coca-Cola among others, became eocnomic and cultural symbols recognizable not just in the US but almost literally in every part of hte globe

Question 68

~What were some examples how non-Western cultures influence the West and the US?

Answer 68

● Reggae music, with its Afro-Caribbean roots ● Global popularity of Bollywood films produced in India, where Bombay/Mumbai serves as the equivalent to Hollywood ● Japan's manga comics and its anime style of film animation ● Indian, Indonesian, and Georgian dishes have added extra variety and specie to the cuisines of Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia

Question 69

~What characterized Western world in the period regarding to science and technology?

Answer 69

● During the first half of the 1900s, the Western world fully industrialized ● Moving into a world where petroleum and electricity were the primary sources of energy ●Nuclear energy has achieved its own importance in the post-WWII era

Question 70

~What were some great medical advances made?

Answer 70

``` ● Polio vaccine ● Elimination of smallpox ● Hearttransplants ● Artificial hearts ● Development of antibiotics ```