Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905–1980)
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, left-wing political activist, playwright, and novelist. One of the leading French public intellectuals of the twentieth century, he was…
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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…
Al-Adab (1953–2013)
The literary journal al-Adab was established in Beirut in 1953. This avant-garde journal was open to all forms of literary experimentation and to all views…
Hare, David (1917–1992)
David Hare was an American sculptor and critic whose work was inspired by the imagination and the subconscious. During the early 1940s, when he began…
Flaubert, Gustave (1821–1880)
A primary innovator of the modern novel, French writer Gustave Flaubert was one of the most influential literary artists of the nineteenth century. Primarily associated…
Genet, Jean (1910-1986)
Jean Genet was a poet, novelist, autobiographer and playwright within the Theatre of the Absurd movement. He wrote licentiously on homosexuals and outlaws, and explosively…
Heidegger, Martin (1889–1976)
Born in Meßkirch, Germany, Martin Heidegger is renowned as a leading 20th-century philosopher of existentialism and phenomenology with far-reaching influence in the Western world. Heidegger…
Benda, Julien (1867–1956)
Julien Benda was a French writer, literary critic, and political thinker. An atypical figure in French literary history, Benda opposed most of the intellectual trends…
Kojève, Alexandre (1902–1968)
Alexandre Kojève was a French philosopher of Russian birth, most remembered for his introduction of Hegel into French and Continental thought. Kojève’s work on Hegel…
Modernism in the Middle East and Arab World
Exploring modernity and its intellectual trends in the Middle East is a very fitting endeavour, as ‘Middle East’ itself is a ‘modern’ term which has…
Nihilism
Most broadly, Nihilism is the rejection of meaningful moral or religious values. Nihilism is often associated with moral Relativism, extreme Skepticism, and Pessimism. First used…
Giacometti, Giovanni Alberto (1901–1966)
Alberto Giacometti was a titan of twentieth-century art. His rich oeuvre of sculpture, painting and drawing ranks alongside pioneering artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri…
Lynching Drama
Lynching dramas reflect the brutal history of racial violence in which black individuals, primarily black men, were murdered by a white mob with no repercussions…
Shi’r
The journal, Shi’r (Poetry 1957–70) was established in Beirut by Yūsuf al-Khāl and the poet theorist Adunis to save poetry from politics. It emerged as…
Elytis, Odysseus (1911–1996)
“For me the Aegean is not merely a part of nature, but rather a kind of signature,” Odysseus Elytis suggested in a 1972 interview with…
Leiris, Michel (1901–1990)
Eluding easy categorization, French poet, essayist and autobiographer Julien Michel Leiris was affiliated with literary Surrealism, Existentialism and ethnography. Involved with the surrealist movement through…
Togni, Camillo (1922–1993)
Camillo Togni was an Italian composer, aesthetician and pianist. Launching a career in the midst of the chaos of World War II, he played his…
Fondane, Benjamin (1898–1944)
A primarily francophone Jewish poet and writer of Romanian origin, Fondane became known as a critic, poet and dramaturge in Romania before leaving Bucharest for…
Modernism in Kannada Literature
Modernism, known in Kannada as ‘Navya’, emerged as a literary movement in the 1950s. This period saw writers deliberately moving away from the Romanticism of…
Nouveau Roman
The ‘Nouveau Roman’ or ‘New Novel’ is used to refer to a literary and critical movement in France during the 1950s and early 1960s. Later,…
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900)
Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran minister, was a German philologist, philosopher, and iconoclast. He is best known for his controversial but powerful reevaluation…
Anti-Semitism including the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism, a term coined in Europe at the end of the 19th century, is the hatred of Jews and Jewishness, the latter being perceived in…
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand (1894–1964)
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was one of the most controversial and innovative authors of the twentieth century. Known for his use of insults, slang, and ellipses in…
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…