Is the Avant-Garde Still Possible? Francis Fukuyama and the End of History.
Is the Avant-Garde Still Possible? Francis Fukuyama and the End of History.
Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 15:00-16:45
Location: FSE022 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC37 Sociology of Arts (host committee) Language: English
Fredric Jameson commented that it’s harder to imagine the end of capitalism than the ecological destruction of the world. This goes back to the question of how social change is actually possible and what is the role of the avant-garde and its relation to political change. We have three models of culture: William Ogburn wrote of culture lag, a now discredited view that culture follows technological change. A second view is that culture is contemporaneous with us, neither ahead nor behind. The third model is that culture can be avant-garde, cutting edge, as it opens up to the new or the future. Max Tomba, influenced by Walter Benjamin, makes a non-synchronist contribution in that he periodizes images that are recuperable for social change. Can there be an alternative history and social development in which the avant-garde is significant again? Theoretically this would involve using concepts developed by Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin. Bloch speaks of the ‘not yet, and the ‘hope principal.’ Avant-garde practices involve a critique and a transcendence of the given. For example, in the Russian revolution avant-garde art played a role both before and after.
What form and institution this will take in the future, and what could be the relation between art and political change? Should we think of culture as a “moment” in the development of consciousness for change, which might lead to more instrumentalized activities? Or are there other models? Papers examining past examples or those projecting into the present and future are welcomed.
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Oral Presentations