reading modernism assignment

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Reading Modernism

Use the knowledge and skills you've gained during this module to complete this project.

The poet Ezra Pound uttered the rallying cry for the Modernist movement when he called upon writers to "Make it new!" In this module, you read and analyzed stories by 20th-century American writers who "made it new" in various ways. You also examined how these writers used new styles and themes to speak important truths about the challenges and changes of modern American life.

Suppose your town's public library system asks you to share your new knowledge of Modernist fiction. They are launching a Modern Fiction Book Club and inviting local teens and adults to meet online or at the library to discuss works of Modernist fiction like the stories you read for this module. The goal of the book club is to introduce readers to 20th-century American classics and to help them understand these works' role in shaping more contemporary American literature. Your assignment is to write a reader's guide for a 20th-century short story by a Modernist American author. The good news is that the library's program director is not picky about which author or work you choose as your focus. For the purpose of this assignment, though, you should select a story that you did not read for this module, although you may select one by one of the authors in the module.

Here's an example of the type of introduction and questions your reader's guide should include.

Reader's Guide for "The Black Ball" by Ralph Ellison

The main character of "The Black Ball" is a single father named John who works as a maintenance man at an apartment building, living in a small and shabby apartment over the garage. John's main concern is the well-being of his young son. He is careful to avoid offending the racist apartment building manager because John can't afford to lose his job. However, an unexpected visit from a stranger and a disturbing incident with the manager cause John to look more toward the future.

Sample Question: In the 1950s, discrimination against African Americans was a tragic fact of American life. By the end of the story, how does the narrator of "The Black Ball" decide to deal with the limits that racism imposes on him and his son?

You may select your story from the list below, or you may search online for other stories by the Modernist fiction writers you studied in this module: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, or Shirley Jackson.

Regardless of the story you choose to introduce, your reader's guide should accomplish these objectives:

• It should focus on a short story written by a Modernist author.
• It should address an audience of contemporary teen and adult readers who will read the story.
• Its introduction should accurately describe the main character and setting and summarize the story's conflict without giving away the ending.
• It should include at least four questions, with each question introduced by 1 to 3 sentences that provide a historical or literary context for it.
• It should help readers recognize and understand the Modernist aspects of the author's style or themes.

As you work on your reader's guide, review the assignment requirements frequently so that you don't leave out any important elements. Study the steps below carefully—they are based on the objectives above and contain more information about each of the requirements of the project.

Your book club reader's guide will be evaluated according to the following rubric.

Everything You Need to Teach Literary Modernism in High School English

• Instructional and Assessment Strategies , Reading Instruction

In my junior English class, we spend a lot of time focused on American literary periods. Literary modernism is one of the trickiest to define. In academic circles, there is great debate about what “modernism” even means. However, to keep that confusion out of the classroom, I focus on a few specific characteristics of modernism.

To guide our study of American literary modernism, we focus on a few key questions:

• What is the historical setting of the text?
• How does literature reflect the historical context in which it was written?
• In what way would the text be different if it had been written in a different period?

This post this post may contain affiliate links .  Please read the  Terms of Use .

Introducing Modernism

By the time my juniors reach modernism, they have studied the American Enlightenment , Romanticism , Regionalism , and Realism .

Based on the time period in which modernism begins, I ask students what historical event likely begins this period. For the most part, they can name World War I. Then, we skip to the end of this time period and see that modernism ends with World War II. Based on these two bookends, I ask students to think-pair-share how they think that much war and trauma will affect American literature.

Then, I write students’ brainstorm on the board before we turn our attention to “ The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner ” by Randall Jarrell (read it here ). I start with this poem because of its brevity, clear “plot,” and evident main idea. As a class, we read and annotate the poem. Then, we match the poem to students’ brainstorm. Which elements from students’ brainstorm appear in the poem? Which do not? What, if anything, do we need to add or remove from the brainstorm?

From here, I introduce this acronym to help students remember the elements of modernism. As we go along, we match the elements of the acronym to students’ brainstorm. Then, we look for each element of modernism in the poem.

To continue our study of modernism, we focus on war poetry. This collection of poems helps students build on their reading of “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” It also helps students understand how the trauma of war affected and shaped modernist literature. War poetry also features isolated and alienated characters who are often rejecting tradition. Further, the psychological realism of war poetry helps students engage with the text.

• First, “ Anthem for Doomed Youth ” by Wilfred Owen does a good job expanding on Randall Jarrell’s work. This is the second poem we read because it has a clear perspective and voice. A lot of the poetry we read deals with the effects of trauma from World War I. Read it here .
• Similarly, “ Grass ” by Carl Sandburg focuses on the effects of war. This is a good upward scaffold because this poem has a more experimental structure. Certainly, the speaker is quite different from the speaker’s of Jarrell and Owen’s poems. Read it here .

Grab these poems plus four more in Synthesis Bundle #5: War Poems !

Increasing Text Complexity

In part, poetry is helpful because it’s easiest to see how modernist authors experiment with form in poems. The brevity of poetry also means that we can encounter more representations of modernism in quick succession. However, not all modern poetry is war poetry, and some poems are more complex than others. As our study of modernism continues, it’s important to continually scaffold students to more challenging texts.

• To begin “ i carry your heart with me (i carry it in) ” by E.E. Cummings is a good upward scaffold. From the start, Cummings’ structural choices instantly catch students’ attention. This poem is a clear example of how modern writers experiment with form and structure . However, it’s tonally very different from other modernist texts on this list, so it helps students see the diversity of modernism. Read it here .
• “ The Unknown Citizen ” by W.H. Auden introduces students to satire. The tone of this poem is so wildly different from previous poems on this list, and it uses a third-person narrator to such a jarring effect. Read it here .
• Similarly, “ Musee des Beaux Arts ” by W.H. Auden gives the modernist treatment to the story of Icarus . This poem really lends itself to the question: How would this moment be different if it were written in a different literary period? Read it here .

Find most of these texts in my Modernism Bundle !

The Great Gatsby

In terms of longer works and novels, The Great Gatsby is a quintessential piece of American modernism. To help students evaluate the text through its historical context , students may need to complete additional research about what America was like in the 1920s. To help students think through the text, consider the following activities:

• Engaging students with this free anticipation guide can help students to begin thinking about the issues involved in The Great Gatsby .
• Writing journals about the novel can help students evaluate the text’s modernism while also helping students make connections with the text. Check out my favorite journals !
• Keeping a symbol log can help students evaluate how the settings and symbols in the novel help Fitzgerald create class commentary.
• Using task cards can help students evaluate the text as a piece of modernism, but task cards can also help students apply literary criticism to the text.

Further Reading

Since literary periods play an important part in my junior American literature class, I’ve written a lot about the subject!

• How To Engage Students In Studying The American Enlightenment
• American Enlightenment Pacing Guide and Unit Bundle
• American Romanticism Unit Bundle and Resources
• Everything You Need to Teach Romanticism
• Everything You Need to Teach Regionalism
• American Literary Movements
• Regionalism Collection
• Modernism Collection
• Post-Modernism
• Realism Notes

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As taught in, learning resource types, bestsellers: out for the count, literary modernism.

 Bradbury, Malcom and James McFarlane. Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890–1930 . Penguin, 1976. ISBN: 9780140138320.

Many commentators have treated Modernism as a consequence of cultural catastrophe, a violent breach with the past in terms of both content and style; others have seen it as a logical development of what went before. Since a number of writers on this course consciously reflected the Modernist style, it may be useful if we know a little of what this might mean. See how many of the following features you can trace in the texts that follow:

Bradbury and McFarlane’s introductory essay “Name and Nature of Modernism” speaks of “overwhelming dislocations, cataclysmic upheavals of culture, fundamental convulsions of the creative human spirit that seem to topple even the most solid and substantial of our beliefs and assumptions, leave great areas of the past in ruins, question an entire civilization or culture, and stimulate frenzied rebuilding” (pp. 19–20).

The word Modern is elusive and difficult of definition, and also very awkward for describing what is now a historical period. It covers a considerable multiplicity of styles. “The term has been used to cover a wide variety of movements subversive of the realist or the romantic impulse and disposed towards abstraction (Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Symbolism, Imagism, Vorticism, Dadaism, Surrealism); but these are not…all movements of one kind, and some are radical reactions against others” (p. 23).

Bradbury and McFarlane see the unifying feature of the various branches of the Modernist enterprise as a case of manner rather than content whose distinguishing qualities are abstraction and highly conscious artifice, taking us behind familiar reality, breaking away from familiar functions of language and conventions of form. Definitions of “the real” are important because the common strand in modernist art is somehow to become independent of it or to transcend it. Qualities include:

• sophistication
• introversion (i.e. intense self-absorption on the part of the writer)
• technical display

Its characteristic forms are:

• anti-representationalism in painting
• atonalism in music
• verse libre in poetry
• stream-of-consciousness narrative in the novel. 
• a sensing of, an exploitation of, a celebration of, cultural disaster, an “immense panorama of futility and anarchy” (p. 27).

Bradbury and Mcfarlane identify amongst the leading Modernist writers Yeats, Joyce, Eliot, Lawrence, Proust, Valery, Gide, Mann, Rilke, Kafka, and Virginia Woolf. Dating is problematic but most accounts concentrate on the first thirty or so years of the 20th century, seeing Modernism’s “annus mirabilis” as 1922, the year of Ulysses and The Waste Land , of Brecht’s Baal , of Lawrence’s Aaron’s Rod , Woolf’s Jacob’s Room , Proust’s Sodome et Gomorrhe, and Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie . Nihilism, alienation, and angst are generally seen as the classic attributes of Modernist writers and Modernist artworks. A reaction against 19th-century Positivism introduced a corresponding interest in irrational and unconscious forces in thinkers like Sorel, Bergson, and Pareto.

Modernism in most countries was an extraordinary compound of the futuristic and the nihilistic, the revolutionary and the conservative [the politics of some leading Modernist artists was extremely reactionary], the naturalistic and the symbolistic, the romantic and the classical. It was a celebration of a technological age and a condemnation of it… in most countries the fermenting decade was the eighteen nineties. (p. 46)

Richard Sheppard’s essay, “German Expressionism”, pp. 274–291, traces its foundation to the second decade of the 20th century. Destructive in intent, and directed against the comfortable certainties of bourgeois platitude in art: “conviction that the institutions of industrial capitalism were maiming and distorting human nature by developing the intellect and the will in the service of material production and neglecting the spirit, feelings and imagination…Paul Fechter [writing in 1920 in Der Expressionismus ] spoke about’the shift of emphasis from inner to outer matters is victorious all along the line’” (p. 276). In his essay “Dada and Surrealism”, pp. 292–308, Robert Short says of this group “..they disputed whether, in the light of new knowledge about man’s psychology and the nature of the universe which was his environment, the production of works of art or literature was any longer feasible, morally justifiable or socially worthwhile” (p. 301).

“The Language of Modernist Fiction: Metaphor and Metonymy” by David Lodge, pp. 481–496, itemises the qualities which mark modernist writing:

First, it is experimental or innovatory in form, exhibiting marked deviations from existing modes of discourse, literary and non-literary. Next, it is much concerned with consciousness, and also with the subconscious or unconscious workings of the human mind…Lastly, modern fiction eschews the straight chronological ordering of its material, and the use of a reliable, omniscient and intrusive narrator. It employs, instead, either a single, limited point of view, or multiple viewpoints, all more or less limited and fallible; and it tends toward a complex or fluid handling of time, involving much cross-reference back and forward across the temporal span of the action. (p. 482)

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Retired General Paul Nakasone named founding director of Institute for National Defense and Global Security

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May 8, 2024, 4:00 PM

Vanderbilt University is proud to announce the launch of the Institute for National Defense and Global Security. The founding director and leader of the institute will be retired General Paul M. Nakasone, who has served as commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency, and chief of the Central Security Service.

Recognized as one of the “nation’s founding cyberwarriors,” Nakasone brings deep intelligence and operational expertise with a broad understanding of emerging threats to U.S. national security and global stability. He is a highly sought after thought leader and was the keynote speaker at the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in 2023.

Universities have a crucial role to play—alongside governmental agencies and private industry—in facing some of the most challenging issues of our time, according to Nakasone.

“The security landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace and in unknown directions. To meet these challenges, it is imperative that we approach them in a highly interdisciplinary way,” said Nakasone, who will also hold an academic appointment in the School of Engineering as Distinguished Research Professor of Engineering Science and Management and will serve as special advisor to the chancellor. “Vanderbilt’s collaborative culture is one of the university’s great strengths. And it is this concept of working across many different fields and forging key partnerships that will guide us as we build the institute.”

Chancellor Daniel Diermeier heralded Nakasone’s appointment, noting that he is among the world’s foremost authorities on global security and cyber warfare.

“It is an immense honor to have someone as accomplished and highly decorated as General Nakasone transition from his lifelong service to the nation to leading Vanderbilt’s Institute for National Defense and Global Security,” Diermeier said. “General Nakasone’s record of achievement in the area of cybersecurity is unmatched. He has been a critical figure in supporting our national defense—and has done so with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

Nakasone and Diermeier pointed to the pressing need to address emerging threats from a wide perspective—encompassing not only battlefield innovations but also disruptions to society, such as election meddling, pandemics and ransomware attacks—during unprecedented times.

The institute, expected to launch in fall 2024, will draw on Vanderbilt’s expertise in fields such as engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, neuroscience, the humanities, biological sciences, emergency medicine, nursing, law and policy. It will be housed in Vanderbilt’s renowned School of Engineering, with involvement from faculty, staff and students across all schools and colleges, including the College of Arts and Science, Peabody College of education and human development, the Owen Graduate School of Management and the newly announced College of Connected Computing. Douglas Adams , vice dean of the School of Engineering and the Daniel F. Flowers Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has worked with internal and external partners from numerous disciplines to establish the institute’s framework. He will continue in a leadership role once the institute formally launches.

The institute is supported by the Office of the Chancellor and Discovery Vanderbilt, an initiative led by the Office of the Provost that focuses on the pursuit of vital solutions to the world’s greatest challenges.

“The Institute for National Defense and Global Security aligns seamlessly with Discovery Vanderbilt’s vision to drive pathbreaking collaborative research and partnerships addressing society’s core challenges,” said C. Cybele Raver, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “With General Nakasone’s leadership and Vanderbilt’s research expertise, this institute will have profound and lasting positive impact on global affairs.”

At the conclusion of this year’s Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, Diermeier described four pillars that will guide the institute’s mission:

• It will accelerate innovation by working with government, military and private sector companies to develop solutions to issues arising at “the speed of modern conflict.”
• It will educate , through an interdisciplinary approach, service-minded students and the national security workforce about trends, tools, policies, data and processes needed to ensure security and stability around the world.
• It will convene national security and intelligence thought leaders and practitioners to explore the most consequential and emerging national security problems.
• It will leverage expertise among Vanderbilt faculty and students to advise national security leaders on both classified and unclassified security-focused initiatives.

“This institute is another example of Vanderbilt’s culture of radical collaboration to achieve our mission to dare to grow. I am deeply grateful to Doug Adams and his colleagues for their tireless work in making this institute a reality,” said Krish Roy, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of Engineering. “General Nakasone is a world leader in defense and security, and his arrival at Vanderbilt will catapult our tremendous strength in national security research and thought leadership to achieve deep global impact.”

About Gen. Nakasone

Nakasone joins Vanderbilt on June 1, 2024. His service as commander of U.S. Cyber Command and NSA director began in May 2018. Previously he had commanded U.S. Army Cyber Command from 2016 to 2018.

A native of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, Nakasone is a graduate of Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, where he received his commission through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He holds graduate degrees from the U.S. Army War College, the National Defense Intelligence College and the University of Southern California.

Nakasone’s awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal (with oak leaf cluster), the Defense Superior Service Medal (with three oak leaf clusters), Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Defense Meritorious Service Medal (with oak leaf cluster), Army Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal (with oak leaf cluster), Army Achievement Medal (with four oak leaf clusters), Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Iraq Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Combat Action Badge and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge.

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The unexpected explanation for why school segregation spiked

On eve of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, a study finds policy choices explain the rise in segregated schools.

It’s well documented that after falling for years, school segregation has risen again in the United States. But why? New research by academics at the University of Southern California and Stanford University concludes that some popular theories are not to blame.

Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, a study being released Monday shows a pronounced increase in school segregation since 1988, particularly in large school districts with significant numbers of Black students.

Overall, school segregation between Black and White students has increased by 25 percent since 1991 in the 533 large districts serving at least 2,500 Black students — a significant increase but nowhere near the decline that occurred in the aftermath of Brown , according to the study. (Of note: the paper makes clear that most of the school segregation in the United States is driven by demographic differences between districts , not within them.)

A school district that was entirely segregated would score 1.0 on the researchers’ segregation scale, whereas a perfectly integrated district, where every school perfectly matched the overall district’s demographics, would score 0.0.

Looking at the nation’s 100 largest districts, segregation was 0.45 in 1968. That fell to 0.17 by 1986 and then rose to 0.28 by 2019, researchers found. So while schools are nowhere near as segregated as they were before courts began enforcing the Brown decision, segregation has risen in recent decades.

Researchers offered the example of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools system in North Carolina, where segregation was absolute — a score of 1.0 — in 1950, before Brown . By 1968, it remained a still-high 0.66 — at that time, the average White student’s school was 10 percent Black, while the average Black student’s school was 76 percent Black (the difference between 10 and 76 produces the score of 0.66).

Then, in 1971, after the courts ordered a desegregation plan in another landmark court case, this one involving the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district , the segregation score there shrank to just 0.03. (The average White student’s school was 31 percent Black; the average Black student’s school was 34 percent Black.) By 1991, it was still low at 0.10 before rising again. In 2022, segregation had reached 0.44.

The study finds that the rise nationally was not driven by increasing housing segregation. Housing segregation certainly helps explain school segregation. But since 1991, housing has become less segregated.

The study also finds that rising school segregation is not driven by racial economic inequality because racial economic inequality also declined over this period.

Both of these trends “would have led to lower school segregation, had nothing else changed,” said the paper by Ann E. Owens, a sociologist at USC, and Sean F. Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford.

So what does explain the rise?

Rather than systemic forces that are difficult to change, these trends are driven by policy choices, they conclude. The researchers point to two specific policies: federal courts releasing school districts, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg, from obligations to desegregate schools beginning in significant numbers in the late 1990s; and school-choice policies that let parents pick what school their children attend.

“It’s not these big structural factors that are outside the school districts’ control that are driving this,” Reardon said in an interview. “It’s things that are under the control of the educational system.”

Court-ordered desegregation plans implemented based on the Brown decision had reduced segregation. But then judges began lifting those orders. “If you switch from an active desegregation effort and go back to neighborhood schools, school segregation is going to go up a lot,” Reardon said.

Had those court orders not been lifted, the study estimates that school segregation would have grown 20 percent less than it did.

At the same time, choice systems such as the introduction of charter schools allowed parents more control — and many used that to choose schools with students like their own. The new study specifically looked at the growth of charter schools and found that if charter schools had not expanded, school segregation would have grown 14 percent less.

These two factors account for all of the rise in school segregation from 2000 to 2019, the paper found.

The rising segregation numbers “appear to be the direct result of educational policy and legal decisions,” the paper concludes. “They are not the inevitable result of demographic changes — and can be changed by alternative policy choices.”

This Mother's Day, share a heartfelt message with these 30 quotes about mothers

Celebrating mothers and motherhood has been a tradition for centuries, even before Mother's Day was officially created. It dates back to  the ancient Greeks and Romans who held festivals for Rhea and Cybele, the mother goddesses, the History Channel reports. Today, the holiday continues to honor mothers and mother figures.

While you might think that you show your mother love for everything she does throughout the year, the second Sunday in May serves as another chance to do so. And how you display your gratitude could vary depending on your love language .

If you're a fan of words of affirmation, here are some quotes to share – or write on a card – this Mother's Day.

Making a bouquet? Here are what flowers are safe v. toxic for cats.

Mother's Day, motherhood quotes

• "I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know." – Mitch Albom , "For One More Day"
• "Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love." – Stevie Wonder
• "A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend." – Amit Kalantri , "Wealth of Words"
• "Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved." – Erich Fromm
• "Mother is a verb. It's something you do. Not just who you are." – Cheryl Lacey Donovan , "The Ministry of Motherhood"
• "Acceptance, tolerance, bravery, compassion. These are the things my mom taught me." – Lady Gaga
• "A mother's love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking." – Helen Rice
• "A mother's love is more beautiful than any fresh flower." – Debasish Mridha
• "When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway." – Erma Bombeck
• "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." – President Abraham Lincoln
• "I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful." – Benjamin Alire Sáenz , "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe"
• "Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws." – Barbara Kingsolver , "Homeland and Other Stories"
• "A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take." – Gaspard Mermillod
• "I can imagine no heroism greater than motherhood." –   Lance Conrad , "The Price of Creation"
• "To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow." – Maya Angelou
• "A mother's arms are more comforting than anyone else's." – Princess Diana
• "My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind." – Michael Jordan
• "There's no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one." – Jill Churchill
• "Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation." – Robert A. Heinlein , "Have Space Suit—Will Travel"
• "Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There's no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving." – Gail Tsukiyama , "Dreaming Water"
• "When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. You are connected to your child and to all those who touch your lives. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child." – Sophia Loren
• "Once you’re a mom, you’re always a mom. It’s like riding a bike, you never forget." – Taraji P. Henson
• "The world, we'd discovered, doesn't love you like your family loves you." – Louis Zamperini
• "The woman who is my best friend, my teacher, my everything: Mom." – Sandra Vischer , "Unliving the Dream"
• "Mothers possess a power beyond that of a king on his throne." – Mabel Hale
• "The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation." – James E. Faust
• "But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins." – Mitch Albom , "For One More Day"
• "My mother sacrificed her dreams so I could dream." – Rupi Kaur
• "Mother's arms are made of tenderness, and sweet sleep blesses the child who lies within." – Victor Hugo
• "No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother’s love." – Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Looking for inspiration? 50 positive quotes for peak motivation

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USA TODAY is exploring the questions you and others ask every day. From " Who was the oldest Golden Girl? " to " What is the smallest country? " to " What's May's birthstone? " − we're striving to find answers to the most common questions you ask every day. Head to our  Just Curious section  to see what else we can answer.

Scientists map the lost 'Atlantis' continent that lies off Australia

A new simulation reveals how Australia's first inhabitants migrated across Sahul, before it became modern-day Australia.

One of the most extraordinary stories of human migration unfolded around 70,000 years ago, as humans crossed from Southeast Asia into modern-day Australia, traversing a now-submerged, Atlantis-like landscape, and becoming the first people to call that land home. 

A rich archaeological record provides ample evidence that this happened. But researchers have long been stumped by the details of this migration, such as how quickly that trek occurred and what routes the newcomers took across the vast territory. 

Now, new research published April 23 in the journal Nature Communications sheds light on some possible answers. Intriguingly, it also helps to pinpoint potential undiscovered archaeological sites where researchers could search for new evidence. 

The research looks at the vast supercontinent that was known as Sahul, a landmass that was exposed about 70,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch , when Earth was in the midst of the last ice age. Glaciation caused declining sea levels that exposed areas of submerged continental shelf connecting what is now mainland Australia to Papua New Guinea in the north and Tasmania in the south. 

Related: Lost 'Atlantis' continent off Australia may have been home for half a million humans 70,000 years ago

Sea levels remained low for thousands of years at a time, but other geological and environmental conditions would have evolved over this period. For instance, there would have been changing rainfall patterns, shifting river courses, spreading or shrinking forests and grasslands, and sediment deposition. All of these factors would have influenced the characteristics of the terrain and, therefore, how humans explored it. 

The researchers used this information to develop a landscape evolution model, which simulated Sahul's changing landscape between 75,000 and 35,000 years ago. The simulation also incorporated possible migration routes from two locations in Southeast Asia  — West Papua and the Timor Sea Shelf — as well as archaeological sites spread across the modern-day landscape. 

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Dating those sites helped to pinpoint the periods when people would have been moving through those parts of the continent. Finally, the simulation incorporated estimates from "Lévy walk foraging patterns" — a type of movement that's commonly used by hunter-gatherers to find food in unfamiliar landscapes —  which also helped to estimate the pace of migration. 

"The new landscape evolution model allows for a more realistic description of the terrains and environments inhabited by the first hunter-gatherer communities as they traversed Sahul," Tristan Salles , an associate professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study, said in a statement . The researchers ran thousands of simulations that exposed the most likely routes humans would have taken, following landscape features and the availability of food they could forage. 

The researchers discovered that these routes would have taken the newcomers along the coastlines and straight through the continent's interior, following the major rivers and streams that crisscrossed the landscape at the time. The calculations showed that these intrepid humans likely traversed the landscape at a pace of about 0.71 mile (1.15 kilometers) per year, which the researchers say is relatively swift. Interestingly, the simulation showed an overlap with regions where other researchers have suggested humans may first have congregated on Sahul.

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By showing where Australia's first people most likely moved, the model may even provide archaeologists with some practical insights for their work. 

"There's one particularly interesting outcome from our map that shows the probability of human presence in Sahul," the study authors wrote in an article for The Conversation . "In a cost-effective way (without needing to travel across the entire continent), it could potentially pinpoint areas of archaeological significance." 

The model helps to flesh out the picture of life on Sahul, where previous research has shown that up to half a million people may have once lived on its now-sunken northern shelf. 

"Our study is the first to show the impact of landscape changes on the initial migration on Sahul, providing a new perspective on its archaeology," the researchers wrote. "If we used such an approach in other regions as well, we could improve our understanding of humanity's extraordinary journey out of Africa."

Emma Bryce is a London-based freelance journalist who writes primarily about the environment, conservation and climate change. She has written for The Guardian, Wired Magazine, TED Ed, Anthropocene, China Dialogue, and Yale e360 among others, and has masters degree in science, health, and environmental reporting from New York University. Emma has been awarded reporting grants from the European Journalism Centre, and in 2016 received an International Reporting Project fellowship to attend the COP22 climate conference in Morocco.  

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Sean Khan: Sean Khan Presents the Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble review – classics reinvigorated

(Acid Jazz) A collective of genre-straddling talents give new life to songs by Nick Drake, John Martyn and Sandy Denny

J azz and British folk enjoyed a fruitful communion in the late 60s and early 70s, primarily via Pentangle, a group entwining folk guitars with a jazz rhythm section and the agile voice of Jacqui McShee. London saxophonist Sean Khan revisits the era with elan here, delivering instrumental versions of hallowed ballads and vocal updates of songs by Pentangle, Nick Drake and John Martyn. Fair to say that the unnamed woman in She Moves Through the Fair has never bustled along in quite such sprightly fashion, led by Khan’s lyrical flute and Andy Noble’s rippling piano. Switching to soprano sax, Khan’s take on Sandy Denny’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes trades the song’s wistfulness for breezy optimism.

McShee herself rolls back the years to sing Pentangle’s I’ve Got A Feeling and Light Flight, sounding remarkably fresh alongside a young band. Twenty-something singer-songwriters Rosie Frater-Taylor and Kindelan prove inspired choices elsewhere, the latter with a delicate version of Nick Drake’s Parasite against a shimmering, crepuscular backdrop, while Frater-Taylor is languid for John Martyn’s Solid Air. Khan’s admiration for Drake is expressed on a short closing piece that captures both the beauty and anguish of his work. A fascinating reset for the genre.

• The Observer
• John Martyn
• Sandy Denny

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