Art and Thought / Art et pensée

If the past is continually retold in the present, as Walter Benjamin suggests, what can critical perspectives reveal and what do they obscure about the history of our modern time? Art and Thought: Histories of the Avant-Garde revisits and reconceptualises the histories of modernism, avant-gardism and postmodernism. Volumes in the series will each offer a critical perspective developed in response to specific cultural artefacts and their qualities. They will engage with literary, artistic and theoretical works, from the past as well as the present, and explore the interactions between literature, visual art, film and music, including the livre d’artiste. The series showcases work by new as well as established scholars, whether monographs, single- or multi-authored collections of essays, and new editions of salient or neglected primary texts in English or French, including original aesthetic works. Writing on translation as well as in translation is welcome. Walter Benjamin nous rappelle que le passé se dit au présent. Dans quelle mesure la pensée critique permet-elle d’illuminer notre histoire ? La collection Art et pensée : histoires des avant-gardes se propose de penser à nouveaux frais les problématiques liant les esthétiques de la modernité, de l’avant-garde et du postmoderne. Chaque volume répondra aux qualités ponctuelles d'objets esthétiques et culturels considérés par une perspective critique propre. Des œuvres de littérature, d’art et de réflexion y seront abordées, qui souligneront les rapports intimes de l’écriture, du visuel, de la musique, du cinéma. Les livres d’artistes ne seront pas oubliés. La collection présentera, en langue française ou anglaise, le travail critique de chercheurs établis ou en début de carrière. Elle offrira à ses lecteurs des monographies, des collections d’essais, des volumes collectifs, et des éditions nouvelles d’œuvres marquantes ou jusqu’à présent négligées, y compris les œuvres littéraires et esthétiques. Les œuvres en traduction nouvelle tout comme les travaux sur la traduction même seront vivement accueillis.

8 Publications

The Modernist Revolution in World Literature

ISSN: 1528-9672

In the stormy time period approximately between the Paris Commune in 1871 and the revolutionary events in May 1968, or between the conclusion of the American Civil War and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, the rise and fall of international modernism was crucial to all historical, political, and intellectual de-velopments around the world. By the time the United States had emerged from its military involvement in Indo-China, the modernist movement had given way to postmodernism. This series investigates the development of international modern-ism in the half century leading up to World War I and its disintegration in the fol-lowing fifty years. High modernism claimed that it represented a break with corrupt values of previous cultural traditions, but we now think that this very drive to “make it new” is itself derivative. What are the roots and characteristics of modernism? How did the philosophical and pedagogical system supporting modernism develop? Is mod-ernism, perhaps, not a liberating movement but a device to shield high culture from rising democratic vulgarization? What is the role of modernism in postcolonial struggles? Where does feminism fall in the modernist agenda? How do changing systems of patronage and the economy of art influence modernism as an enor-mously expanded reading public becomes augmented by cinema, radio, and televi-sion? Such questions on a worldwide stage, in the century approximately from 1870 to 1970, in all manifestations of literature, art, politics, and culture, represent the scope of this series In the stormy time period approximately between the Paris Commune in 1871 and the revolutionary events in May 1968, or between the conclusion of the American Civil War and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, the rise and fall of international modernism was crucial to all historical, political, and intellectual de-velopments around the world. By the time the United States had emerged from its military involvement in Indo-China, the modernist movement had given way to postmodernism. This series investigates the development of international modern-ism in the half century leading up to World War I and its disintegration in the fol-lowing fifty years. High modernism claimed that it represented a break with corrupt values of previous cultural traditions, but we now think that this very drive to “make it new” is itself derivative. What are the roots and characteristics of modernism? How did the philosophical and pedagogical system supporting modernism develop? Is mod-ernism, perhaps, not a liberating movement but a device to shield high culture from rising democratic vulgarization? What is the role of modernism in postcolonial struggles? Where does feminism fall in the modernist agenda? How do changing systems of patronage and the economy of art influence modernism as an enor-mously expanded reading public becomes augmented by cinema, radio, and televi-sion? Such questions on a worldwide stage, in the century approximately from 1870 to 1970, in all manifestations of literature, art, politics, and culture, represent the scope of this series In the stormy time period approximately between the Paris Commune in 1871 and the revolutionary events in May 1968, or between the conclusion of the American Civil War and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, the rise and fall of international modernism was crucial to all historical, political, and intellectual de-velopments around the world. By the time the United States had emerged from its military involvement in Indo-China, the modernist movement had given way to postmodernism. This series investigates the development of international modern-ism in the half century leading up to World War I and its disintegration in the fol-lowing fifty years. High modernism claimed that it represented a break with corrupt values of previous cultural traditions, but we now think that this very drive to “make it new” is itself derivative. What are the roots and characteristics of modernism? How did the philosophical and pedagogical system supporting modernism develop? Is mod-ernism, perhaps, not a liberating movement but a device to shield high culture from rising democratic vulgarization? What is the role of modernism in postcolonial struggles? Where does feminism fall in the modernist agenda? How do changing systems of patronage and the economy of art influence modernism as an enor-mously expanded reading public becomes augmented by cinema, radio, and televi-sion? Such questions on a worldwide stage, in the century approximately from 1870 to 1970, in all manifestations of literature, art, politics, and culture, represent the scope of this series

3 Publications