Modernism in Africa
Though they often escape critical scrutiny, concepts such as modernism, modernity, and modernization are at the heart of the concept of development, and thus omnipresent…
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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…
Bunster, Patricio (1924–2006)
Patricio Bunster’s career was emblematic of a Latin American engagement with European modernism and unique in its exchange with German modern dance (Ausdruckstanz). Trained in…
Sabogal, José (1888–1956)
Long associated with the Peruvian ‘indigenista’ movement, Sabogal was lauded by the Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui as a truly ‘Peruvian painter’. The definition of the…
Carswell, Catherine (1879–1946)
Catherine Carswell was one of an increasing number of women who tested boundaries in life and literature in the early years of the 20th century.…
Efflatoun, Inji (1924–1989)
Inji Efflatoun was an Egyptian painter, feminist, and political activist. She completed her secondary education at the Lycée Français in Cairo where she was introduced…
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1868-1963)
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was the most significant critical writer on race and culture in the twentieth century. Du Bois characterized the issue of…
Existentialism
Existentialism is the term given to an interdisciplinary school of thought that focuses on the lived experience of human beings. Existentialism was especially popular in…
Yllanes, Alejandro Mario (1913–1960)
Alejandro Mario Yllanes was a Bolivian Aymara painter, engraver, and muralist. His art career began with an exhibition in his hometown of Oruro in 1930,…
Melodrama
With its origins in the novel and the theater, melodrama appeared in late 18th-century Europe and reached maturity at the turn of the 20th century.…
Martinů, Bohuslav (1890–1959)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959). Czech composer of Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and American citizenship. He left his native Polička in Eastern Bohemia in 1906 to study violin at…
Péguy, Charles (1873–1914)
French writer of the beginning of the twentieth century Charles Péguy was a socialist, a dreyfusard, a republican, a nationalist, a catholic, a mystic, successively…
Finnegans Wake
An experimental masterpiece by James Joyce, published in 1939. Joyce began writing it during 1923 and parts of it appeared under the title Work-in-Progress within…
Atsuko, Tanaka (1932–2005)
Born on the February 10, 1932 in Osaka, Japan, Atsuko Tanaka was a leading figure in Gutai, an avante-garde artists’ movement which counted more women…
Robert Graves
Robert Graves was a prolific poet and novelist whose career began with the semi-autobiographical Good-bye to All That (1929) but who became famous after the…
Occultism, Spiritualism and Hermeticism
Sometimes called ‘hidden knowledge’, Occultism refers to beliefs and practices concerning the intersection of the material and spiritual worlds, purportedly representing the most ancient religious…
Lutyens, Elisabeth (1906–1983)
(Agnes) Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE, was an English composer, credited with helping to establish the twelve-tone method of serialism in Britain. Lutyens’s first major composition using…
Lenin, Vladimir (1870–1924)
Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) was the most prominent figure in the translation of Marxist political economy and theories of proletarian revolution into successful…
Luxemburg, Rosa (1871–1919)
Also known as ‘Red Rosa’, Rosa Luxemburg was a writer, philosopher, feminist, and labour activist who fuelled the socialist movement in Weimar Germany. For modernists…
Monroe, Harriet (1860–1936)
Harriet Monroe was an American woman of letters who — from her position as founder and long-time editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse —…
Bo, Carlo (1911–2001)
Carlo Bo was a poet, literary critic, and professor at the University of Urbino in Italy; he was one of the foremost authorities on French…
Billone, Pierluigi (1960–)
Pierluigi Billone is an Italian composer. Following early studies in guitar and composition in Sienna and Milan, he studied with Salvatore Sciarrino before moving to…
Wannus, Saadallah (1941–1997)
Saadallah Wannus, Syria’s best known and most respected contemporary playwright, was born in Tartous province. His plays were deeply critical of Arab power structures and…
Jensen, Johannes V. (1873–1950)
Winner of the 1944 Nobel Prize in literature, the novelist and poet Johannes V. Jensen was Denmark’s major 20th-century literary figure. Much celebrated for his…
Athenaeum, The [REVISED AND EXPANDED]
The Athenaeum, ‘A Journal of Literature, Science, and the Arts’, was published weekly in London between 1828 and 1921. John Middleton Murry was its final…