Modernism Lecture

0:02 Hello class. Uh, I hope you enjoyed last week's lesson on um industrial America. This week we're going to be getting into modernism, World War I, the lost generation, and the Roaring 20s. So, we're going to start with some historical context, and that context is going to be World War I from 1914 to 1918. So this is a global conflict between the allies France, Britain, Russia, Italy, the US and the central powers. So Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. It all started in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke France Ferdinand and his wife Sophia of AustriaHungary. So what had happened, long story short,

0:48 is that AustriaHungary had annexed Bosnia and a lot of Serbians lived in Bosnia. Serbians wanted their own country that was ethnically Serbian or Slavic. Um, and a group of Serbian nationalists uh were going to attempt to assassinate the archduke. Um, the person who would succeed was Gavillo Princet. This caused a chain reaction in which Russia backed Serbia, Germany backed Austria Hungary, and then France and Britain had to come to Russia's aid, all because they were allies. The US didn't enter the war until toward the end in 1917. And the reason why we entered the war primarily was that Germany was sinking ships indiscriminately. So we have the sinking of the Lucatania in 1915. This was a passenger ship and um

1:36 over a 100 innocent Americans were killed in this instance. There was also the Zimmerman telegraph. Uh so we intercepted a telegraph in which uh Germany was planning to aid Mexico in rec in recovering territory that was lost during the Mexican-American war. This was a huge um national security issue. And we also have our economic ties to Britain and France. We were also a part of this global ally system and we felt that we needed to come to our allies aid. But what was different about World War I? are new technologies of war. War had changed a lot since we had had a major global conflict. Um, prior to World War I, people thought of war as a way of gaining personal honor. But these

2:22 new technologies like tanks, machine guns, rapid fire artillery um had made war a lot more bloody than anyone had ever seen before. Um we uh had this issue where we could not advance directly on our opponent uh without a major loss of life. So they decided to dig trenches for protection. But now we have both sides in trenches and neither side can break through defenses and we have a stalemate. [snorts] And so we have soldiers on the Western Front who are living for months on end in these trenches uh dealing with constant shelling, sniper fire, chemical attacks, and horrible disease-ridden conditions. Um you may have heard of trench foot,

3:08 which is when these conditions were so wet and muddy and we didn't have um waterproof technologies for uh clothing yet. And so the water would seep into their boots and their feet would start to rot from all of the moisture. Uh, World War I caused 116,000 American deaths. And when soldiers returned from World War I, many of them experienced what um was labeled at the time as shell shock, which is what we now know to be post-traumatic stress disorder. African-American soldiers played a huge part in World War I. There were 400,000 black Americans that served at the time. They made up 13% of the US military when African-Americans only made up 10% of

3:54 the total US population. The military at this time was segregated and so most black soldiers served as laborers. They built roads, unloaded ships, and they dug trenches. But some African-Ameans did serve on the front lines. And that includes the Harlem Hell Fighters who spent 191 days fighting on the front lines. When they returned from World War I, they faced horrible racial violence. So that included the Red Summer of 1919 where 26 cities erupted in riots and racial violence um over competition for jobs and housing. What this created is what we came to call the lost generation. Soldiers in World War I were overwhelmingly in their

4:41 teens and early 20s. And when they came back from World War I, they didn't know how to re-enter society. Many of them were permanently disabled. They had shell shock. They were mentally ill. And the tenants of this generation are disillusionment. So the traditional values um of the society that they had left now feel empty and irrelevant. Alienation, feelings of being disconnected from society and from oneself. Existential despair. So it's this feeling as if life has no meaning and uh an anxiety over free will and the inevitability of death. Uh and then hedonism. So living for physical pleasure when you don't feel as if you have a sense of purpose. So that would be drinking, partying, gambling, uh sex.

5:29 Uh on the left you can see um a pamphlet. Um where do where do we go from here? This is the real dope. So the government and society as a whole was well aware that these young men were going to have a difficult time transitioning into regular society. So they published pamphlets that were intended to help um give men ideas on how to find jobs, how to um you know find a wife. But ultimately this just felt very patronizing to these young young men. The result of uh this response to World War I is an attitude called modernism. Um the 19th century very much believed that industry and science were creating human progress. Things were going to get better. Um but World War I made people

6:16 question this. Um we've seen these new technologies of war do incredible harm. And so faith in progress has been totally shattered. life doesn't seem orderly or predictable anymore. And um the conventional artistic and literary styles that we're used to like realism don't seem to represent modern life anymore. Um they believe that a fractured sense of self is better depicted through abstraction, fragmentation and unconventional perspectives. The uh society during during this period also rapidly changed. This attitude of modernism not only transformed art and literature but it transformed American society. So um the feelings of

7:02 alienation and anxiety that young men felt upon returning from war meant that they held new values compared to past generations. Uh they largely rejected the strict moral codes of past generations and they invented new ways of having fun. So like in the image cruising in cars with their friends or going to jazz clubs. Um, we challenge these traditional social beliefs like the place of women in society. These young women in the car, they're having fun. They're going out in a mixed gender group. They're wearing bathing suits. Um, and ideas concerning morality. We also have new leisure activities um like the movies, radio, automobile travel, phongraph records, jazz clubs, dance halls. Um, and young people who felt so devastated by World War I very quickly

7:48 took to these new forms of entertainment as a distraction from their feelings. Women participated heavily during World War I too. Um, so women took jobs that men left behind and they proved that they were as capable as men in the workforce. So on the right you can see um women who were working in a textile mill. when men returned from World War I, um we have uh the forcible return of women back to the home. So we have the um return to civil employment act uh which legalized firing women um so that they could hire returning veterans. So women were forced to return to the home but they had a greater sense of personal

8:33 capability and civic responsibility. Um [snorts] the suffrage movement was forced to return to this appeal of agency over the family. uh but it was strengthened by the proof that women were capable of civic participation. Um on the left we have a poster um uh urging giving women the vote but it's taking it from the angle of um women uh have the best interests of children in mind and so if women are allowed the vote um they will uh make policy decisions that will uh be best for families. But we also have a a counter reaction to this. Um, we have on the right uh a poster that is um trying to disparage women's suffrage by making the the point that um if we give women the

9:18 vote, we're basically turning the tables on our on our gender roles. So men are going to be forced to do the things that women should do like washing or taking care of the baby. I want to vote, but my wife won't let me. Um in 1920, women do gain the right to vote, and this is the 19th amendment. This time period of rapid social change is often referred to as the roaring 20s. Uh Europe was devastated by World War I, which made for greater economic opportunity for America on the global stage because no fighting happened on American soil. Um we have the ramping up of mass production of of consumer goods. Uh this meant that average people could buy things that only wealthy people had been able to buy before. So, cars, new

10:05 clothes, um, phonograph records. We have an expanding middle class that are embracing consumer culture and they have more money and more free time for leisure activities. This is also the birth of a distinctive youth culture. It's the first time that young people openly expressed a culture distinct from childhood versus adulthood. And this included um, flappers, so young women going to dance halls dressing in scandalously short dresses. Um, we have cruising culture. Uh, and we also have slang. And some of this slang is still in use today. Um, like the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, or referring to, um, like a bar or a club or a restaurant as a joint. This is also an era in which advertisement exploded for the first

10:52 time. A larger portion of Americans could buy afford to buy consumer goods and uh, more consumer goods were being created than ever before. We have um on the left an ad for um makeup uh showing this this new freedom of self-expression that women have gained. Um in the middle we show it shows a woman water skiing and this um demonstrates both new freedoms for women and new leisure activities for young people. We can make a comparison um of this advertisement to the awakening for example where the women the woman of the um late 1900s wouldn't have even known how to swim. And now the woman of the 1920s is water skiing. And then on the right um we have an ad for an automobile that

11:37 demonstrates how many young men wanted to feel which is like a playboy demonstrating the hedenism of the lost generation. This time in youth culture um we see a lot of fads and crazes. there's um an increase in long-distance communication and this growth of consumer culture enables us to have these nationwide trends that they called fads or crazes. Uh one of those is dance marathons. So people would stay up all night trying to see who could um stay on their feet the longest while dancing. Sometimes partners would take turns where one partner would sort of snooze or try to take a nap while the other held them up and they kept dancing and then they would switch. And this is going to become um much more insidious as we get

12:22 into the Great Depression. And people started doing this not just for fun, but as a way of trying to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. We have pole sitting. You can see the the young man on the left there. Um I think pole sitting is interesting because it's something that um I think kids today would do um and post on social media for views. We also have Egypt mania. So this was the time um when uh Toutin Common's tomb had just been discovered and all of a sudden young people are obsessed with Egyptian motifs and imagery. We see it on um fashion. We see it on um housewares for example and also the spread of um games like maong and crosswords. Young people wanted um they

13:08 wanted entertainment. Uh they wanted ways to uh connect with each other and things like maong and crosswords provided that. This is also the time period where we get the birth of jazz. Uh jazz emerged from African-American musical traditions and it spread through new technologies and industries like radio, the phongraph, the nightclub and the dance hall. It is uniquely representative of modernism because it has improvisation, individual expression and the breaking of traditional social norms. And importantly, it brought African-American culture to a wider stage. Prior to this time period, African-American culture was um a minority culture that was very

13:54 much looked down upon by the rest of white America. When jazz enters the scene, all of a sudden um we have very large groups of non-affrican-american Americans. So, white Americans, Asian-Americans, um Hispanic Americans, all loving this new musical form. But we also have uh people who equivalently hated it. It's very divisive at this time. Speaking of divisions, this is an era of contradictions. Um so in any era of great change, there are counter movements to preserve the old ways of life or offset what is perceived as the uh degradation of moral society. Um, so after decades of the

14:39 temperance movement, we finally get prohibition, the 18th amendment in 1920. But the problem with this is that people still wanted to drink alcohol. So speak easys began selling alcohol illegally. Um, and they inadvertently supported the growth of the of Jazz Age entertainment culture. We also have these important contributions to World War I by African-Americans and to Jazz Age culture. But at the same time, we have increased racial violence in the south and we have the rise of religious fundamentalism in the Bible belt. And finally, we have the Scopes trial of 1925. So, this is often called the monkey trial. Uh, essentially what happened was Tennessee banned teaching evolution in schools and [snorts] a teacher named John Scopes decided to

15:26 teach evolution anyway and he was arrested. >> [snorts] >> The case was brought to public attention um and it really revealed these deep issues regarding religious traditionalism versus modern science in public schools. Uh it became a huge media circus and it used new technologies of information to um to make the case available to all Americans. So the radio for example, [snorts] Scopes ended up being found guilty just on a technicality and he was fined $100 and he was released and Tennessee was able to keep its ban on teaching evolution until this um another case was brought to the Supreme Court in 1968. But what's interesting about this topic to me is that it's arisen again recently. This issue of um religious

16:12 traditionalism versus modern science and secularism is something that uh Americans have been discussing and arguing for a very long time. I wanted to show this um advertisement or um rather news piece from uh the 1922 uh Baltimore Sun by Martha Lee. She produced um many of these and they are reflective of um this sort of pendulum swing feeling where um some people are very um excited by these changes in society and others are very wary of them. Uh they're scared of perhaps what they're doing to the younger generation. So parents are becoming aroused to the evils of modern jazz. Um we see this

16:57 kind of rhetoric over and over again in American cultural conversations. Uh today we might be asking um what is social media doing to young people or uh are violent video games uh creating school shootings things like this. Now we're going to move into part two. So we want to look at how the lost generation responded in modern writing and poetry. There are two distinct literary responses to World War I. The first is isolation and escapism. So these feelings of on we alienation, confusion, withdrawal from society and civic responsibility. But on the other other side um of the coin we see increased

17:43 civic activism. So renewed vigor for social change and feelings that World War I had disrupted society to the point where change is inevitable. We're going to look first at Ernest Hemingway's Soldiers Home from 1925. And as you read it, I want you to think about Kreb's psychological state and how it's representative of the lost generation's attitude toward life. Uh consider how these feelings contribute to the breakdown of positive social relationships. And also take a look at escapism as a way of ignoring harsh realities and difficult feelings. This is your opportunity to pause the video if you haven't already read Soldiers Home before we do a little analysis.

18:29 All right, so Kreb's use of exaggeration demonstrates his feeling that no one wants to know the horrific realities of World War I. Um, you'll notice that he um talks about how he just lies about his war experiences. He makes up stories um because he understands that people really want to hear these heroic war stories and this does not feel authentic to him and authentic to his experience. Krebs is depressed and he feels disconnected. He doesn't get a job. He sleeps all day and he isn't interested in dating. Um, nothing has changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up, but they lived in such a complicated world of already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or courage to

19:15 break into it. His experiences of World War I have left him questioning the worldview that he grew up with. So, we have the scene where his mother comes into his bedroom and asks him, "Hey, when are you going to get a job?" Um and she tries to impress upon him the Christian values that he had grown up with. God has some work for everyone to do. His mother said there can be no idol hands in his kingdom. But Kreb's reply is I'm not in his kingdom. So these experiences of horror, destruction, death have made Krebs question the religious foundation that he grew up with. Next, we're going to look at Web Deo's Returning Soldiers. Um, and as you read

20:01 this one, I want you to consider why did the African-American experience of World War I renew the fight for equality? How does Duboce compare to Hemingway? And why is the response of young white males to World War I so marketkedly different than the response of Africanameans? So fighting for another country's freedom really highlighted inequalities in the US. For bleeding France and what she means and has meant and will mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance. We fought gladly and to the last drop of blood for America and her highest ideals. We fought in far off hope. And so Duboce is

20:50 pointing out here that we have fought to um regain freedom for the French. And while we were doing this, we were fighting with the idea that America should be a country of freedom. It should be a country of true democracy, of equality for all. We fought in far off hope that America would truly see the ways in which it's wrong. The ways in which it is not truly providing freedom or equality for all. Duboce urges returning black soldiers not to give up on America but to rally around the ideal of freedom and equality. So he says, "This is the country to which we soldiers of democracy return. This is the fatherland for which we fought, but it is our

21:36 fatherland. It was right for us to fight. The faults of our country are our faults. Under similar circumstances, we would fight again. But by the God of heaven, we are cowards and jackasses. If now that war is over, we do not marshall every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land. So when we put Hemingway and De Boyce in comparison with one another, what we're seeing is um the young male the young white male response to World War I is one of disillusionment of onwe of despair and turning to um entertainment to try to distract from civic responsibility. no longer feeling as if

22:23 it's worth it to bother with being a a civic um you know member of civic society in America. And what we see in the African-American response is this renewed interest in fighting for equality, a renewed civic responsibility. Um Duboce does not blame white America um for everything that that goes on. He says the faults of our country are our faults. Um, so he is urging African-Americans to take the issue to themselves, to take to the streets, to fight for justice, to fight for equality. Next, we're going to move into modernist poetry. Some of the tenants of modernist

23:08 poetry include a focus on inner psychological states, observation of the mundane or easily ignored, the rejection of classic poetic forms, use of freeverse, colloquialisms and slang, so conversational um a conversational tone to poetry and fragmented impressions. We're going to look at Ezra Pound's in a station of the metro from 1913. Pound's famous maxim is make it new. So Pound was emphasizing this idea that when we create art, we should be pushing boundaries. We should be doing something that has never been done before. So when you read the poem, think about why is

23:55 the poem so short? Um why is Pound comparing two things that don't really go together? So in this poem, Pound is uh rejecting classic poetic forms and he's using a um poetic device called juxiposition to put two unrelated things in comparison with one another. So this would be faces and crowd with pedals and bow. So this natural imagery being compared to this modern urb urban setting which is the metro or subway. um pound is representing this single fleeting moment in time that most would not notice. Um poetry prior to this time uh very much looked toward a particular um story or a

24:43 particular image. We wanted to see the whole of what was going on. And what Pound is doing is saying even this mundane singular moment so short and fleeting is worthy of poetry, worthy of art. Next, we're going to look at Ezra Pound's A Pact. So, um hopefully you guys read um Walt Whitman's poem, I Hear America Singing. Um if you haven't, now's a good time to go ahead and read that poem real quick. So, Whitman at this time is the image of an American frontiersman and he's a symbol of America's past. As you read, consider why does Pound have issues with women? What's his problem? And what is Pound saying when

25:29 he decides to make a truce with Whitman? So, Whitman's I Hear America singing is representing an idealized picture of America with the working class all harmonizing as one to create this varied landscape of American uh industry. [snorts] And by the time that Pound is writing poetry, this idea really feels false. But Whitman is still considered the most important and foundational poet in America. Everyone at this time wants to emulate his style and his fame. But Pound is uncomfortable with idealism. He feels that we need new poetic forms to respond to the changes America has faced and the ways in which the younger generation feels alienated and lost. and

26:16 he admits that he previously fought against the precedent for American poetry that Wittmann set. But now he's come to the conclusion that he has no choice but to accept Whitman as a valued predecessor. Uh although he knows that he doesn't love Whitman's poetry and Whitman really would not like his poetry either. Um he symbolically proposes that they bury the hatchet and they admit that they have one common goal which is to poeticize American life. He recognizes that both he and Whitman come from one sap and one root and that they both have an interest in defining the American experience through poetry. All right. So, the final poem we're

27:02 going to turn to is E. E. Cummings next to, of course, God, America I. So, as you read this one, pay attention to Cummings lack of capital letters, his unique poetic form, his use of slang, and the speaker's psychological state. Also, try to consider how the poem reflects attitudes toward patriotism in the aftermath of World War I. So, Cummings uses this rapid rhythm which imitates a very impassioned speaker. I like to imagine that maybe this person is um sitting in a bar with his friends and they're all talking about their feelings of patriotism.

27:49 Maybe he's had a little bit too much to drink and he's been quietly listening to what everyone else has to say. And then finally, he just breaks down and he begins to speak so rapidly and with so much passion, fury. Um, I love the last line of the poem because it takes us out of this speaker's rant and it places us in a setting. We don't really know what this is, but we can always imagine. Um, what we do know is that what came before is this rapid outburst of repressed feeling that the speaker might feel embarrassed of. And that's why in that last line, he stops speaking and he drinks a glass of water. Either because he's thirsty from his long rant or I like to think he's trying to push away an uncomfortable feeling.

28:36 Cummings is criticizing patriotism without deeper reflection. He's asking what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter. Uh so what he's doing in this poem is really highlighting the fact that um Americans want to hear heroic tales of the war and that is not the reality. Um we now have new ideas of what war is. Um that war is devastating. War is um akin to death. It is not akin to heroism. All right. So, now that we all made it through um our literature and poetry, we're going to discuss modern American art.

29:23 All right. So, what is modern art? Modern art's an exploration of what art can be if we push the boundaries. Now, the emphasis is on originality and experimentation, a rejection of realism and traditional forms, perspectives, and colors. And there's some important modern art movements that we are going to um just briefly go through before we get to American modern art. So that's abstract art, cubism, futurism, expressionism. These are the art forms that were happening in Europe at the time um that America is soon to be confronted with. Here's a quick comparison of what we've gone through so far. So we had romanticism with the themes of beauty, the sublime, imagination, heroism,

30:09 idealization, history and mythology. Then we have realism. So uh this is a reaction to romanticism. We want to see everyday life as it really is. Lifelike landscapes, portraits of daily activities, gritty urban scenes. We're going to then have another reaction, modernism. Modernism is going to question what art can be. Um, it's full of experimentation. It focuses on abstraction fragmentation individual expression. So, America is going to come in contact with these modern art forms at the Armory Show of 1913. So, this was the first large exhibition of modern art in America. It was traveling between US

30:54 National Guard Armories in New York, Chicago, and Boston. and exposed American artists and the public to these European artists that were pushing the boundaries and creating new genres of art. So this would be artists like Pablo Picasso, Claude Monae, Enri Matise, and Marcel Duchamp. So, I don't expect you to memorize all of these art movements, but what I want to do here, like we did last time, is just take a brief look at these art movements, what Europe was doing at the time, and how it was so incredibly different from what came before. Um, we have the movement fauism, which is um an expressive rather than realistic use of color. So, color is applied straight from the tube. We're not mixing it up on an easel first. We're not trying to

31:41 imitate lifelike color. The term phob fobism means wild beasts. So it indicates this unrestrained bold brush strokes. We have cubism. So cubism breaks down subjects into these abstract geometric forms. Um early cubism used muted pallets, grays, browns, blacks. Um but later cubism is going to explore some really bold bright colors. We have expressionism. So bold art, um bold use of color, um art expressing inner feelings and personal psychology. Um it's similar to fauxism, but the difference is that the harshness of color and the distorted forms are meant

32:27 to express alienation, suffering, confusion, um passion. And so we're expressing a lot of those inner feelings that are characteristic of the lost generation. Then we have futurism. So this was the most controversial genre at the armory show. Um its intention is to show motion, speed, dynamism, and the energy of the modern city. So um the image on the left is Marcel Duchamp's nude descending a staircase. Um and as you'll notice, it's not showing one um snapshot in time as we would expect from a portrait. It's actually combining many many snapshots to try to demonstrate movement so that this figure is moving

33:14 down the staircase almost like um you slowed down a um an image from film. But I also think it's very funny that since this was so controversial um we had a lot of um cartoonists like JF Griswald who were parodying u futurism. So, the rude descending a staircase, rush hour at the subway. So, it's making fun of the uh the fact that when everyone tries to get in on the subway at rush hour, it's just bedum. So, how America is going to respond to these modernist art forms um after viewing the Armory Show is that they're going to ask questions like, "How do we depict the forms of modern life in a new way, but without copying what European

33:59 artists are doing?" They want to do something that's all their own, very American. And their response was precisionism. So precisionism combines elements from cubism. So the geometric forms and futurism. So the emphasis on modern subjects, city life, machinery, and industry. What's unique about it is it's going to use clean, precise, structured lines. So unlike European modern art, which um uh precisionism is going to maintain identifiable forms. So, uh, for example, European modern art may, um, show a portrait of a woman, but it's going to be difficult to actually see that that image is a woman. It's abstract. But what precisionism is going

34:46 to do is take a little bit of the abstraction away so that we definitely know what the subject of the artwork is. And then precisionism is also going to blend realism with abstraction. The first piece that I want to look at is Morton Shamberg's telephone from 1916. So the telephone was invented in 1876, but it wasn't widely in use, like a standard of every American home until the 1920s. Um, so this would have been a little early on. The telephone would have been um something that is now entering into um modern American homes. So Shamberg's subject is uniquely modern, but so is his style. So he doesn't represent a telephone the way um

35:31 you would normally see one, but instead emphasizes its geometric forms. So you can see the forms of lines, circles, and cylinders. He's [snorts] using the abstract to depict modern technology. And this is a hallmark of modernist art. The next painting I'd like to look at is Charles Duth's My Egypt. So, Duth is depicting a grain elevator and this would have been a major figure of the industrial landscape at the time. Um, he then simplifies the shapes into uniform geometric squares, cylinders, rectangles, and lines. Um, the title My Egypt refers to the story in the book of

36:16 Exodus in the Bible where Joseph oversees the storage of grain for the Pharaoh. And as he's doing this, he's able to then save Egypt from famine. When Demouth makes this reference, he is celebrating American industry. He's emphasizing the idea that industry can prevent hunger and that the farmer is the new Joseph and the while the grain elevator is the new Egypt. And finally, I want to take a look at Stuart Davis's Lucky Strike. So, the main tenant of precisionism is taking an ordinary thing from American life and turning it into art. Um, Davis chose a cigarette package and he refineses it by using these clean lines and geometric

37:03 shapes to emphasize a sense of visual harmony. >> [snorts] >> Um, as you can see, it's not realistic like an American realist painting, but instead the cigarette package is abstracted into its most basic forms, um, of circles, rectangles, and lines. Um, [snorts] it's important to note too that Lucky Strike cigarettes were included in soldiers ration packets during World War I. So this is making um a statement not just about um you know the tenants of modernism but about um experiences of World War I and about capitalism and consumerism. Um so this choice of subject matter emphasizes the modernist concern with World War I and its consequences as well as their concern with the modernist

37:49 consumer world. Very briefly, I want to look at art deco. So, art deco was seen as the architecture for a new age. Um, it's an aesthetic style that celebrated modernity, technology, and luxury. Um, and it wasn't just found in buildings. We see it in clothing, textiles, jewelry, art, home decor, and furniture. Um, it is uh defined by geometric shapes and clean symmetry. Uh, we see sunbursts, chevrons, zigzags, and a lot of use of chrome, glass, marble, and ivory. Um, if you've ever been to New York City, the Chrysler building is an excellent example of art deco architecture. Or there's also the Guardian building in Detroit.

38:37 All right, so the final thoughts for this unit. What does it mean to be modern? What does modern um what does what does modern mean? Does it mean just new or does it have a more specific definition? How did World War I change Americans outlook on life? And how is modernism reflected in art, literature, poetry, and architecture? Thanks for staying with me this long. Um, I want to remind you guys that we are going to have a quiz this week as usual, but you will have your first real discussion board. So, for the discussion board, your first post is going to be due Thursday at 3:00 p.m. and then you will have a response to appear due Sunday at 11:59 p.m. I've uploaded a

39:25 rubric for these discussion posts so that you guys can get a better idea of uh what you need to do in order to to get full points on this assignment. So, good luck and happy learning. Um I will see you all next week.