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 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…
Modernism in Latin America
In Latin American intellectual history, modernism is a term that can be usefully and accurately applied to at least two distinct intellectual movements: a clearly…
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…
Film Subject Overview
The Film Section includes entries on a variety of modernist genres, periods, movements, directors, films, and critical modes aligned with modernist aims and intellectual attitudes.…
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…
Modernism in South Asia
In South Asia, a certain haziness regarding modernism and modernity derives not only from the manner in which they can be elided with each other,…
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 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,…
Montage
As an aesthetic principle, montage, defined as the assemblage of disparate elements into a composite whole often by way of juxtaposition, is most often associated…
Impressionism (Painting)
Impressionism is an artistic movement that flourished in France between 1860 and 1890. The term has been widely adopted around the world to describe artistic…
Modernism in Australia and Oceania
(Previously published as 'The Experience of Aboriginality in the Creation of the Radically New' in Ross, S. (ed.) (2014) Modernist World, Abingdon: Routledge.)1
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…
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…
Photography
Symbolism Overview
Symbolism is a late-nineteenth-century literary movement centred mostly around the work of poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam,…
Thomson, Virgil (1896–1989)
Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. During his childhood Thomson’s creative and intellectual gifts did not go unnoticed, and with the assistance of…
Orage, A. R. (1873–1934)
Born in Dacre, Yorkshire, England, Alfred Richard Orage was a British intellectual and writer and the editor of The New Age magazine. The son of…
Collège de Sociologie
A discussion group of French intellectuals established in Paris in March 1937, the Collège de Sociologie lasted until late 1939.
Lifar, Serge (1905–1986)
A crucial figure in the rehabilitation of ballet at the Paris Opéra, Serge Lifar had a glamorous career as a dancer, choreographer, and intellectual in…
Beydoun, Abbas (Bayḏūn, ʿAbbās) (1945--)
Abbas Beydoun is one of Lebanon’s most famous poets and writers, and one of the most outstanding and important intellectuals in the Arab world. He…
Musil, Robert (1880–1942)
Robert Musil’s work stands out for its intellectually stimulating and at the same time challenging subtlety and diligence. The essayistic form of his writing, his…
Hedayat, Sadegh (1903–1951)
Sadegh Hedayat was an Iranian writer and intellectual who was responsible for introducing Modernism to Iranian literature. His short stories and novellas are the best…
Kraus, Karl (1874–1936)
Karl Kraus was a famous literary and cultural critic and a cult figure in Vienna’s intellectual scene around 1900. He was the editor of the…
al-Shidyāq, Aḥmad Fāris (c.1805–1887)
Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq was a Lebanese writer and journalist and one of the most provocative figures of the Nahḍa (‘awakening’), an intellectual current in the…