Intellectual Currents
This section focusses on the historical, sociological, philosophical, economic, political, and scientific context of modernism. Entries cover individuals, coteries, movements, and events. The primary criterion…
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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…
Modernism in Canada and The United States
In Canada and the United States modernism emerges from transnational engagements with global intellectual movements while also grappling with local intellectual, cultural, and political developments…
Dadaism
Dada began in Zurich, Switzerland, in the midst of World War I. Several expatriate artists converged in the city to escape the brutal and seemingly…
Futurism
Futurism emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century as a movement that explicitly conceptualized the process of literary and artistic experimentation as part of…
Modernism in East Asia
The term ‘modernism’ is commonly used to describe some of the literary and cultural production of the early twentieth century in China, Japan, and Korea,…
Vigo, Jean (1905–1934)
Jean Vigo was an anarchist and social realist French filmmaker responsible for four short yet influential works. Famously honored as “the cinema incarnate” by Henri…
BLAST (1914–1915)
BLAST was an early modernist ‘little magazine’ edited by Wyndham Lewis in London. Not to be confused with Alexander Berkman’s San Francisco-based anarchist newspaper The…
Berkman, Alexander (1870–1936)
Alexander Berkman (21 November 1870–28 June 1936), while largely remote from literary concerns, was closely connected to a number of key modernist figures, helping to…
Miller, Henry (1891–1980)
An iconoclastic writer of autobiographical fiction, travel narratives, and personal essays, Henry Miller drew on several strands of European Modernism, including Surrealism, Dada, and Expressionism.…
Zero de Conduite (Zero for Conduct) (1933)
Directed by Jean Vigo, Zero for Conduct is a short film about young boarding school students rebelling against their teachers’ strictures. The film is an…
Smart, Elizabeth (1913–1986)
Elizabeth Smart was a Canadian poet and novelist, best known for By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept– a novella-length work of prose…
Satō, Haruo (1892–1964)
Satō Haruo was a modern Japanese writer and poet active from the late Meiji to the mid Shōwa era, roughly from the 1910s until his…
Die Aktion
Die Aktion was a review of radical politics and culture published by Franz Pfemfert (1879–1954) in Berlin from 1911 to 1932. During the period of…
Anarchism
Anarchism is a term derived from the Greek anarkhia, meaning “contrary to authority” or ”without a ruler.“ Anarchism narrowly refers to a theory of society…
Shahn, Ben (1898–1969)
Ben Shahn was an American painter, photographer, muralist, and graphic artist. His realist style, left-wing political activism, and socially conscious artwork exemplify social realism. After…
Durrell, Lawrence (1912–1990)
Lawrence Durrell was born in Jalandhar, India under British colonial rule. Both his parents were born in India and never saw England before 1923 when…
Neo-Impressionism
Neo-Impressionism (1886–1906) comprised a group of avant-garde painters in France who explored a systematic approach to painting that revived Classical ideals while critiquing Impressionism’s prevailing…
Luhan, Mabel Dodge (1879–1962)
Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was a writer and patron of the arts who hosted circles of visual and literary artists at her homes in…
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
The Spanish Civil War was a major military conflict between right-wing Nationalists and left-wing Republicans that erupted after a coup d’état was staged by rebel…
Gascoyne, David (1916–2001)
David Gascoyne was a British poet and novelist active in English surrealism and post-surrealism. His novel Opening Day (1933) was one of the earliest prose…
Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1922)
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, 1922] is a silent German Expressionist film made by Robert Wiene, and is considered among the…
Picasso, Pablo (1881-1973)
Born in Malaga, it was in Barcelona that Picasso first identified himself as a subversive Modernist with a critical, contestatory and transgressive praxis exposing the…
Woodcock, George (1912–1995)
George Woodcock was a British-Canadian poet, political activist, biographer, travel writer, novelist, dramatist, translator, and literary critic. He was born in Winnipeg, but spent his…
Marsden, Dora (1882–1960)
Dora Marsden significantly influenced the aesthetics of Anglo-American Modernism largely through her creation of a series of journals.