Transatlantic Avant-Gardes

Provides an alternative account of the modernist transatlantic

Transatlantic Avant-Gardes offers a revisionary account of the evolution of twentieth-century modernism. Complimenting recent studies of modernist expatriates, Eric White explores new points of contact between European and American avant-gardes to place ‘located’ figures such as William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Jean Toomer, and Alfred Kreymborg back into the 'global design' of literary modernism. Focusing on artist-run 'little magazines' (including Others, Contact, The Little Review, Blast, The Dial, Fire!!, and Pagany) and selected fine press publications and mainstream periodicals, White also reconsiders the boundaries that traditionally divide modernist literature into 'exile' and 'localist', or 'regionalist' and 'cosmopolitan', factions. Thus, the book proposes a version of localist modernism that prioritises issues of geographic and textual 'location' to deliver a 'networked' approach to American modernism in the transatlantic context. Combining literary-historical, textual, and cultural criticism, Transatlantic Avant-Gardes provides a new reading of the specialised literary networks that interrogated the relationship between geographic place, textual space and national identity in the modernist transatlantic.

Key Features:

• Provides a new account of the literary avant-gardes that questioned the relationship between geographic place, textual space and national identity
• Complements modernist studies of American expatriates
• Combines literary-historical, textual, and cultural criticism to deliver a ‘networked’ reading of American modernism in the transatlantic context
• Proposes a version of ‘localist modernism’ that prioritises issues of geographic and textual ‘location’ in transnational literary studies