Modernism is a coherent artistic category despite skeptics who call it empty

Evidence

Oddly enough, the authors of two of the most interesting recent discussions of Modernism, Perry Anderson and Franco Moretti, both deny that there is any relatively unified set of artistic practices which can be captured by a definition such as Lunn’s. Anderson writes: ‘Modern/sw as a notion is the emptiest of cultural categories. Unlike Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Mannerist, Romantic, or Neoclassical, it designates no describable object in its own right at all; it is completely lacking in positive content.’ Anderson perhaps places excessive faith in the traditional categories of art history, terms whose origins are often arbitrary and use uncertain and shifting. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 77

Categorization

• QUESTION: How does this defense of Modernism as a coherent category set up the book’s broader critique of postmodernism as incoherent? The reader may want to trace this argumentative structure.
• XREF: connects to: The category Modernism is a heterogeneous portmanteau lacking shared attributes — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 78; Modernist literature works as a perception instrument whose form survives even rejected insights — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 1839; Postmodernism can only be defined relative to the equally confused term modernism — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 92 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The category Modernism is a heterogeneous portmanteau lacking shared attributes #contradicts (0.95) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 78
• Modernist literature works as a perception instrument whose form survives even rejected insights #corroborates (0.85) — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 1839
• Postmodernism can only be defined relative to the equally confused term modernism #qualifies (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 92