Talk about weird science.The early 20th century signaled a massive explosion in scientific innovation. We're not just talking about motorcars and the telephone—although those were huge—we're ta...

Etymology time, Shmoopers! This brain snack is cool: the term "Avant-garde" comes from French military terminology. It refers to the front line of soldiers, the vanguard, who are out in front of th...

No, not what happens when you bonk your head on a brick wall. We're talking Freud's idea about the stormy seas of desire and animal need that are crashing about in the back of your mind right now....

Freud's theories about the unconscious definitely changed the way people thought about the mind. But William James' theories about the nature of consciousness that had a much greater influence...

Gertrude Stein reportedly quoted the mechanic who fixed her car when she branded the young group of artists and writers who attended her Paris salon as "a lost generation." Ernest Hemingway bo...

One of the most influential poets of the period was Ezra Pound, who proclaimed the maxim "Make it New!" on frequent occasion and even made it a title to one of his books.Pound and his buddies disag...

As well as being among the most significant poets of his time, Pound had a talent for attracting attention. This gift served him well in the early years, when he could pretend to discover rules for...

Ever ride a bus in New York City full of the cacophony of people speaking in half a dozen languages? Or drive the streets of metropolitan Southern California, where the street signs morph every few...

Gangsters. Flappers. Speakeasies. Bathtub gin. Sexual freedom. Oh, yeah, and hot, hot jazz music: the 1920s was a time for pushing the envelope in all ways possible.Jazz was considered the first tr...

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world.The Modernist heyday was a time not only for revolutionary scientific and philosophical theories… it was also a time...