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 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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Ridge, Lola (1873–1941)
A proletarian modernist, the poet Lola Ridge is best known for her work published between 1918 and 1922, which coincided with her editorship of Broom…
Mavo
Mavo was a coterie of vanguard artists, designers, and poets centered on Tokyo between July 1923 and late 1925. It sought to politicize art amid…
Callaghan, Morely (1903–1990)
Morley Callaghan was a renowned Canadian novelist and short-story writer during the twentieth century. While he had a long literary career, his early work is…
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Kandinsky’s commitment to abstraction in painting and theory has attracted the attention of artists and critics throughout the twentieth century. His major manifesto Über des…
Borges, Jorge Luis (1899–1986)
Jorge Luis Borges is among the writers who have brought international fame to Latin American Literature. A fabulist, poet, essayist and translator, Borges shaped modern…