Lesson plan
Off-modern
Off-modern is a concept coined by Svetlana Boym that describes a detour into the unexplored potentials of the modern project. It recovers unforeseen pasts and ventures into the side-alleys of modern history at the margins of error of major philosophical, economic, and technological narratives of modernization and progress. Off-modern reflection involves the exploration of the lateral potentialities of the project of critical modernity. In other words, it opens into the "modernity of what if" rather than simply modernization as it is. As such, the term serves as an intervention in the larger theoretical discussion surrounding modernity, postmodernity, hypermodernity, altermodernity, late modernity, and post-postmodernism. Boym introduced the term in her book The Future of Nostalgia (2001). The concept was further elaborated in the first decade of the 21st century in The Off-Modern Manifesto (2003–2004), the book Architecture of the Off-Modern (2008), and in her media projects "Cities in Transit", "Portable Homes", "Black Mirrors", and "Hydrant Diaspora". The manifesto circulated globally and was republished in platforms such as NeMe, Art-e-fact, and ArtMargins.…
Article summary
Off-modern is a concept coined by Svetlana Boym that describes a detour into the unexplored potentials of the modern project. It recovers unforeseen pasts and ventures into the side-alleys of modern history at the margins of error of major philosophical, economic, and technological narratives of modernization and progress. Off-modern reflection involves the exploration of the lateral potentialities of the project of critical modernity. In other words, it opens into the "modernity of what if" rather than simply modernization as it is. As such, the term serves as an intervention in the larger theoretical discussion surrounding modernity, postmodernity, hypermodernity, altermodernity, late modernity, and post-postmodernism. Boym introduced the term in her book The Future of Nostalgia (2001). The concept was further elaborated in the first decade of the 21st century in The Off-Modern Manifesto (2003–2004), the book Architecture of the Off-Modern (2008), and in her media projects "Cities in Transit", "Portable Homes", "Black Mirrors", and "Hydrant Diaspora". The manifesto circulated globally and was republished in platforms such as NeMe, Art-e-fact, and ArtMargins.…
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.