Genealogies of Modernity

Season 2 of Genealogies of Modernity is a limited series from the Genealogies of Modernity Project and Ministry of Ideas. Each episode takes up a well-worn story about what it means to be modern and how we got here, and then challenges that narrative with recent humanities scholarship. Genealogies of Modernity illuminates lesser-known pathways to the present and unearths overlooked resources from the past for flourishing in the future. Genealogies of Modernity is a project of Beatrice Institute and Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture, with major support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For responses to the series, teaching aids, as well as artwork and videos, visit genealogiesofmodernity.org. Ryan McDermott, Producer and Genealogies of Modernity Project Director . Maria Devlin McNair, Senior Producer and Script Editor Jack Pombriant, Sound Designer Zachary Davis, Executive Producer (Ministry of Ideas) Special thanks: Dan Cheely, James DeMasi, Peter Fristedt, Max Glider, Jake Grefenstette, Darrah McDermott, Jess Sweeney, University of Pittsburgh Department of English and Humanities Center, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture Season 1 was written and produced by Ena Gojak and Owen Joyce-Coughlan with the support of Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture.

The Enemy of Morality Is Not Modernity, It’s Me 12/20/2023

A Genealogy of Gun Violence 12/13/2023

A Medieval Anti-Racist 12/06/2023

Picturing Race in Colonial Mexico 11/29/2023

Jamestown and the Myth of the Sovereign Family 11/22/2023

What Is Genealogy? 11/18/2023

What Is Modernity? 11/18/2023

Climbing the Mountains of Modernity 11/18/2023

Climbing the Mountains of Modernity We all know many stories about how modernity came about. But what does it mean to be “modern?” This episode comes at the question through the test case of mountain climbing and rock climbing. Claims to becoming modern through climbing often point back to Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch’s ascent of Mt. Ventoux in 1336, a climb that made him, according to many historians, “the first modern man.” But Petrarch was by no means the first person to climb Mt. Ventoux, and his own account is, if anything, counter-modern. By surveying evidence of much earlier climbing in Europe and pre-contact North America, the episode argues that humans have always been climbing mountains and scaling cliffs for a wide variety of reasons. Only recently did they start to think of these achievements as making themselves “modern.” It turns out that to claim to be modern is one of the most modern things you can do. Researcher, writer, and episode producer: , Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh; Senior Research Fellow, Beatrice Institute Featured Scholars: , Director of Range Creek Field Station, University of Utah , Career-line Associate Professor of Geography, University of Utah , Professor of History, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Dawn Hollis, Independent Historian Special thanks to: Jake Grefenstette, John-Paul Heil, Jason König, Michael Krom, Michael Puett For bibliography, teaching aids, and other supporting media, please visit: Genealogies of Modernity is a limited series from the and . Each episode takes up a well-worn story about what it means to be modern and how we got here, and then challenges that narrative with recent humanities scholarship. Genealogies of Modernity illuminates lesser-known pathways to the present and unearths overlooked resources from the past for flourishing in the future. Genealogies of Modernity is a project of Beatrice Institute and Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture, with major support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For responses to the series, teaching aids, as well as artwork and videos, visit . Ryan McDermott, Producer and Genealogies of Modernity Project Director . Maria Devlin McNair, Senior Producer and Script Editor Jack Pombriant, Sound Designer Zachary Davis, Executive Producer (Ministry of Ideas) Special thanks: Dan Cheely, James DeMasi, Peter Fristedt, Max Glider, Jake Grefenstette, Darrah McDermott, Jess Sweeney, University of Pittsburgh Department of English and Humanities Center, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture /episode/index/show/genealogiesofmodernity/id/28699648

Chris Nygren – Giorgio Vasari and Genealogies in Art History 10/21/2019

Eileen Reeves - Galileo and Early Modern Science 10/21/2019

Karen Detlefsen - Women in Early Modern Philosophy 10/21/2019

Ryan McDermott - On Genealogy 10/21/2019

Genealogies of Modernity

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