Architecture Subject Overview
Modernist architecture and design represented a utopian vision of how the built environment could be adapted to the needs to modern industrial society. Industrialization had…
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Symbolism Overview
Symbolism is a late-nineteenth-century literary movement centred mostly around the work of poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam,…
Modernism in Europe
We are living in a very singular moment of history. It is a moment of crisis, in the literal sense of that word. In every…
Literature Subject Overview
Literary modernism is a truly global and plural phenomenon, playing out in multiple cultural paradigms, in various timeframes, and in response to diverse experiences of…
Dance
Historically, modern dance scholarship has followed the contours of the field as defined by John Martin, the revered dance critic for The New York Times,…
Hikmet, Nâzım (1902–1963)
Nâzım Hikmet (Ran) (b.January 15, 1902, Thessaloniki–d.June 3, 1963, Moscow) was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist, and screenwriter who spent nearly fifteen years of his…
Baird, Irene (1901–1981)
Canadian novelist and civil servant Irene Baird is best known for her second novel, Waste Heritage (1939), which was based on firsthand research into the…
Babel, Isaac [БАБЕЛЬ, ИСААК] (1894–1940)
Known primarily for his short fiction, Isaac Babel was one of the most important literary figures of early Soviet Russia. He was born in 1894…
Spectralism
Spectralism is a tendency in contemporary art music that takes the material attributes of sound as the point of departure for composition. Originating in France…
Foxtrot
The foxtrot emerged circa 1914, most likely within African American practices, as a variation on the older duple meter one step popular with dancers since…
Readymades
In 1916, the French artist Marcel Duchamp coined the term “readymade” to describe a body of his own work in which everyday and often mass-produced…
Capoeira
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian movement practice that has been categorized as national sport, folklore, martial art, and dance. Although capoeira has been considered a game…
Gubaidulina, Sofia Asgatovna (1931--)
Sofia Gubaidulina was born in Chistopol in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, of mixed Russian and Tatar parentage. After graduating from Kazan Conservatoire in…
Dalman, Elizabeth Cameron (1934--)
In a career that has spanned over sixty years, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman has been shaped by a politically progressive view of the role of dance…
Wu Xiaobang (吴晓邦) (1906–95)
Wu Xiaobang, known in China as “the father of Chinese new dance,” was the most important pioneer of modern dance in twentieth-century China. Exposed to…
Nono, Luigi (1924–90)
Luigi Nono stands out as one of the most uncompromising modernist composers of the Italian avant-garde. Together with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, Nono was…
Collins, Janet (1917–2003)
Magical on stage, elusive off stage, Janet Collins was an enigmatic and complex presence in twentieth-century dance. As the first full-time African American ballerina at…
Darktown Follies (Lafayette Theatre, Harlem, 1913)
One of the earliest large-scale musical revues to be created and performed by an all-Black cast, Darktown Follies premiered in 1913 at the Lafayette Theatre…
Ball, Hugo (1886–1927)
Born in Pirmasens on February 22, 1886, the German writer Hugo Ball is best known as the co-founder, with Tristan Tzara, of the Cabaret Voltaire…
Shklovsky, Viktor (1893–1984)
Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Victor Borisovich Shklovsky (or Shklovskii; Ви́ктор Бори́сович Шкло́вский) was a literary critic, autobiographical novelist, and a leading figure of Russian…
Jook House
The jook house (also juke joint), an African American institution found mainly in semiurban areas in the Southern United States, is an important cultural phenomenon…
Crane, Harold Hart (1899–1932)
Generally considered one of a half-dozen major American modernist poets, Hart Crane produced during his short, nomadic life some of the twentieth century’s most impossibly…
West, Rebecca (1892–1983)
Rebecca West was a novelist, journalist, essayist, and travel writer, and a central figure in twentieth-century literary and political culture. Her The Return of the…
Souster, Raymond (1921–2012)
Raymond Holmes Souster has been described as a poet of place who invests Toronto, the city of his life-long residence, deeply into his writing. Having…
Ragtime Dancing
Ragtime dancing is a social dance practice, performed to ragtime music, that began in the 1890s and gained widespread popularity in US dance halls until…