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…
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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…
Surrealism Overview
Soupault’s publication of Manifeste du Surréalism in 1924. Rising in the wake of the First World War, Surrealism revolted against a world that had become…
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…
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,…
Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939)
Sigmund (Sigismund Schlomo) Freud was an Austrian psychiatrist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who systematized theories of the unconscious and psychosexual development. Freud published case…
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.…
Alienation
From the Christian doctrine of original sin, through G. W. F. Hegel’s conception of freedom, and the situated subject of existentialist thought in the wake…
Allen, Barney (1902–1967)
Barney Allen was the pseudonym of Solomon Allen, a Jewish-Canadian novelist from Toronto, Ontario. His writing combined influences from James Joyce and Sigmund Freud. His…
Modernism in Austria-Hungary
Modernism in Austria-Hungary developed in the imperial capital Vienna and other major cities such as Prague, Budapest, and Trieste. In the coffees houses of these…
Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930)
David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) was born in Eastwood, near Nottingham, England. He composed poetry, several travel books, expressionist paintings, short novels and stories, literary criticism…
Bryher (1894–1983)
Born in Margate, England, the illegitimate daughter of British multi-millionaire Sir John Ellerman, Bryher resisted gender and marriage conventions throughout her life. Best known as…
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is an area of Central London located in the Borough of Camden between Euston Road and Holborn. The neighborhood is home to the British…
Bataille, Georges Albert Maurice Victor (1897–1962)
Georges Bataille (September 10, 1897–July 9, 1962) was a French writer who synthesized ideas from many disciplines. He converted to Catholicism at the start of…
Schapiro, Meyer (1904–1996)
Art historian Meyer Schapiro was born in Šiauliai [Shavley], Lithuania, on September 23, 1904, but soon immigrated to the United States with his family in…
Daney, Serge (1944–1992)
Serge Daney was regarded as one of the greatest film critics in French intellectual culture. For Jean-Luc Godard, his untimely demise signalled the end of…
Sinclair, May (1863–1946)
May Sinclair was a novelist, journalist and literary critic. She began writing relatively late in life to help support her family, and while most of…
Pollock, Jackson (1912–1956)
Jackson Pollock was one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism in mid-twentieth century America. He began his career working for the Federal Art Project,…
Blitz
The Blitz during World War II both curtailed and provoked creative expression. Key figures of the modernist movement re-evaluated the politics underlying their aesthetics at…
Hesse, Hermann (1877–1962)
Hermann Hesse was born in Calw (Germany) in a pietistic missionary family. To his devout parents, ‘the I’, as a subject next to God, had…
Svevo, Italo (1861–1928)
Italo Svevo was born as Aron Ettore Schmitz in 1861 in Trieste, a city in the north-east of Italy that until 1919 was part of…
Dalí i Domènech, Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto (1904–1989)
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech was a Spanish artist whose works and personal life were marked by grandiose eccentricity. Although best known for…
Teige, Karel (1900–1951)
Karel Teige was a Czech theoretician of art and architecture, an artist and typographer, and an organizer of the Czech avant-garde. He was one of…
Arquitetura Nova
When the architect Sérgio Ferro entitled his 1967 manifesto ‘New Architecture’, he proclaimed a new architecture in Brazil by means of alignment with the thesis-manifesto…
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886–1961)
Perhaps best known as one of the founding imagists, H.D. was also a novelist, essayist and actor active throughout the entire modernist period. From her…