Issue X: Modernity

Life has never been static, and there has always been something or the other happening at any given point of time. And yet, the world feels heavy right now. 2025 feels consequential and historical in a way that seems unprecedented to our generation, because of the state of the world but also of the collective emotional turmoil that seems to be taking us all by storm.

 

Amidst all of this uncertainty, we bring to you modernity. Drawing upon Baudelaire's definition of modernity as "the ephemeral, the fleeting, the contingent," and Foucault's characterization of modernity as "the will to "heroize" the present," we bring to you a theme that aims to celebrate our decennial issue by chronicling this current year and era through your words.

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This theme is meant to be as open to interpretation as possible. We provide the words of philosophers to serve as a guiding idea of what modernity could look like, but we give you the freedom to mold the word into whatever you'd like it to be. You could explore your life looks like in the current moment, or juxtapose the present with archaic historical stories to illustrate how modernity has changed over the centuries. You could write about the constants in society as rebellion against ephemerality and proof that humans can create longstanding inventions, or you could romanticize the fleeting as a call to action to take life less seriously and treasure the little things. All that we ask of you is to show us, in your own art, how you define modernity and why.