The invention of politics in the European avant-garde (1906-1940) / / edited by Sascha Bru and Gunther Martens.

• Superior document: Avant garde critical studies ; 19
• TeilnehmendeR: Bru, Sascha.; Martens, Gunter, 1934-
• Year of Publication: 2006
• Language: English
• Series: Avant garde critical studies ; 19.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (290 pages) :; illustrations
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In 1906, for the first time in his life, F.T. Marinetti connected the term ‘avant-garde’ with the idea of the future, thus paving the way for what is now commonly called the ‘modernist’ or ‘historical avant-garde’. Since 1906 the ties between the early twentieth-century European aesthetic vanguard and politics have been a matter of debate. With a century gone by, The Invention of Politics in the European Avant-Garde takes stock of this debate. Opening with a critical introduction to the vast research archive on the subject, this book proposes to view the avant-garde as a political force in its own right that may have produced solutions to problems irresolvable within its democratic political constellation. In a series of essays that combine close readings of texts and plastic works with a thorough knowledge of their political context, the book looks at avant-garde works as media producing political thought and experience. Covering the canonised avant-garde movements of Futurism, Expressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism, but also focussing on the avant-garde in Europe’s geographical outskirts, this book will appeal to all those interested in the modernist avant-garde.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material / Sascha Bru and Gunther Martens -- Acknowledgements / Sascha Bru and Gunther Martens -- The Phantom League. The Centennial Debate on the Avant-Garde and Politics / Sascha Bru -- “Sometimes I Spit for Pleasure on My Mother’s Portrait”. On the Strategic Uses of Inflammatory Rhetoric in Surrealism / Kirsten Strom -- Framing Literary Speech Acts of Political Modernity. Notes on Hermann Broch, Karl Kraus and Expressionism / Gunther Martens -- The Rhetoric of Violence. Avant-Garde Manifestoes and the Myths of Racial Community / Laura Winkiel -- Uncanny Polemics and Ambivalent Reappraisals. The French debate on Surrealism on the Eve of the Cold War / Steven Engels -- Ecstatic Subjects. Citizenship and Sex in Czech Surrealism / Malynne Sternstein -- From a New Art to a New Life and a New Man. Avant-Garde Utopianism in dada / Hubert F. van den Berg -- The Futurist Political Party / Günter Berghaus -- Surrealism and the Political. The Case of Nadja / Raymond Spiteri -- Cultural Hegemony and Avant-Gardist Rivalry. The Ambivalent Reception of Futurism in France, England and Russia / Thomas Hunkeler -- A Europeanizing Geography. The First Spanish Avant-Garde’s Re-Mapping of Castile (1914-1925) / Renée M. Silverman -- Dragging Nordic Horses past the Sludge of Extremes. The Beginnings of the Icelandic Avant-Garde / Benedikt Hjartarson -- Illustrations / Sascha Bru and Gunther Martens -- Abstracts / Sascha Bru and Gunther Martens -- Index / Sascha Bru and Gunther Martens.