2024: A Year in Review

About Genealogies of Modernity

Genealogies of Modernity is an interdisciplinary humanities project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities in collaboration with the Collegium Institute (University of Pennsylvania) and Beatrice Institute (Pittsburgh). The project includes a podcast series, a public-facing journal, and seminars exploring the many (and often conflicting) narratives we tell ourselves about what it means (or does not mean) to be “modern.”

Robert Frost in 1913

In 2024, Genealogies of Modernity published approximately 80 posts in our online journal and eight episodes in our narrative podcast series. Some of most popular publications this year include reflections on Hannah Arendt and 90s nostalgia; the role of historical video games as pedagogical tools; the contested origins of eugenics in the U.S.; the role of poetry in contemporary public life; Marianne Moore’s relationship with Chinese Dan performance; mountain climbing as a religious experience; Hungarian-Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil’s status as a modern master; and a sonic analysis of Robert Frost’s poetry recordings.

Here are some other highlights from this year:

From the Archive

Two of our most popular articles of 2024 were actually pieces from the archive: Ryan McDermott’s “What Foucault Meant When He Said ‘Genealogy’” (from 2021) and Krystal Marsh’s “Eating Elizabethan” (from 2020). These articles each garnered around 3,000 reads in 2024 alone. For any readers still looking for a New Years dessert, Marsh’s “Eating Elizabeth” surveys some compelling (and time-tested) recipes, including this guide to Banbury Cakes from Gervase Markham’s The English Huswife (1615):

To make a very good Banbury Cake, take four pounds of Currants and wash and pick them very clean, and dry them in a cloth: then take three Eggs, and put away one yelk, and beat them and strain them with the Barm, putting thereto Cloves, Mace, Cinamon, and Nutmegs, then take a pint of Cream, and as much mornings Milk, and set it on the fire till the cold be taken awy; then take flowre, and put in good store of cold butter and sugar, then put in your eggs, barm and meal, and work them all together an hour or more; then save a part of the past, & the rest break in pieces, and work in your Currants, which done, mould your Cakes of what quantity you please, and then with that paste which hath not any Currants, cover it very thin, both underneath and aloft. And so bake it according to the bigness.

To explore more articles from our archive, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Value of a Liberal Education

Our most popular article published this year was Kate Whitaker’s personal account of her undergraduate experience with liberal education. In “Stained Glass: The Aims of Education at the University of Chicago,” Whitaker offers a compelling outline of the ethical and political stakes of a rigorous encounter with the humanities:

Liberal education constantly takes us out of ourselves. It asks us to consider times and places far different from our own. We do not feel at home in Thucydides’ Peloponnese or Plutarch’s Chaeronea, with their strange customs and unfamiliar ways of thinking. As Plato writes of learning, it is a metastrophē or a periagogē—a complete conversion, a turning outside oneself. When we question even the familiar, it distances us: “Why does rain fall to the ground?” takes the thinker to the skies.

A modern liberal democracy requires the same of its citizens. In a difficult balance, it demands that we detach ourselves from only serving our own interests to focus on the interests of our country.

The Genealogies of Modernity Podcast

The biggest development for Genealogies of Modernity in 2024 was the announcement of our new narrative podcast. Released as a limited series of Ministry of Ideas and supported by a Media Production Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, each episode of this podcast takes up a well-worn story about what it means to be “modern” and challenges that narrative with recent humanities scholarship. The most popular place to start has been Episode 2.2, “What is Modernity?”, where Harvard scholar Michael Puett explores competing claims to the origins of modernity in ancient China.

The Genealogies of Modernity team recently supplemented this podcast with a free guide for teachers, which includes full teaching aids, discussion questions, journal prompts, and resources for further exploration. The guide is designed for secondary and tertiary educators, but is also suitable for reading groups and individual study.

What is Genealogies of Modernity?

In October 2024, we released a concise overview of the history and scope of the Genealogies of Modernity Project. If you are new to our publication, this is the best place to start. Please help us spread the word by sharing it with anyone in your life who loves public-facing humanities scholarship!

Follow Us on Substack

Finally, due to popular demand, 2024 saw Genealogies of Modernity branch out into Substack. Be sure to follow us here to keep up with our newest publications.

If you are interested in writing for us, you can find our pitch guidelines here.

Happy New Year from the Genealogies of Modernity team!