Modernism: The Basics provides an accessible overview of the study of modernism in its global dimensions. Examining the key concepts, history and varied forms of the field, it guides the reader through the major approaches, outlining key debates, to answer such questions as: What is modernism? How did modernism begin? Has modernism developed differently in different media? How is it related to postmodernism and postcolonialism? How have politics, urbanization and new technologies affected modernism? With engaging examples from art, literature and historical documents, each chapter provides suggestions for further reading, histories of relevant movements and clear definitions of key terminology, making this an essential guide for anyone approaching the study of modernism for the first time.

The modernist avant-garde used manifestos to outline their ideas, cultural programs and political agendas. Yet the manifesto, as a document of revolutionary change and a formative genre of modernism, has heretofore received little critical attention. This 2007 study reappraises the central role of manifestos in shaping the modernist movement by investigating twentieth-century manifestos from Europe and the Black Atlantic. Manifestos by writers from the imperial metropolis and the colonial 'periphery' drew very different emphases in their recasting of histories and experiences of modernity. Laura Winkiel examines archival materials as well as canonical texts to analyse how Sylvia Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, Mina Loy, Wyndham Lewis, Nancy Cunard, C. L. R. James, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Aime Cesaire and others presented their modernist projects. This focus on manifestos in their geographical and historical context allows for a revision of modernism that emphasizes its cross-cultural aspects.

The modernist avant-garde used manifestos to outline their ideas, cultural programs and political agendas. Yet the manifesto, as a document of revolutionary change and a formative genre of modernism, has heretofore received little critical attention. This 2007 study reappraises the central role of manifestos in shaping the modernist movement by investigating twentieth-century manifestos from Europe and the Black Atlantic. Manifestos by writers from the imperial metropolis and the colonial 'periphery' drew very different emphases in their recasting of histories and experiences of modernity. Laura Winkiel examines archival materials as well as canonical texts to analyse how Sylvia Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, Mina Loy, Wyndham Lewis, Nancy Cunard, C. L. R. James, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Aime Cesaire and others presented their modernist projects. This focus on manifestos in their geographical and historical context allows for a revision of modernism that emphasizes its cross-cultural aspects.

Modernism: The Basics provides an accessible overview of the study of modernism in its global dimensions. Examining the key concepts, history and varied forms of the field, it guides the reader through the major approaches, outlining key debates, to answer such questions as:

What is modernism?

How did modernism begin?

Has modernism developed differently in different media?

How is it related to postmodernism and postcolonialism?

How have politics, urbanization and new technologies affected modernism?

With engaging examples from art, literature and historical documents, each chapter provides suggestions for further reading, histories of relevant movements and clear definitions of key terminology, making this an essential guide for anyone approaching the study of modernism for the first time.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. What is Modernism? Chapter 2. Concepts Chapter 3. Histories Chapter 4. Forms Afterword

Modernism as a global phenomenon is the focus of the essays gathered in this book. The term "geomodernisms" indicates their subjects continuity with and divergence from commonly understood notions of modernism. The contributors consider modernism as it was expressed in the non-Western world; the contradictions at the heart of modernization (in revolutionary and nationalist settings, and with respect to race and nativism); and modernism s imagined geographies, "pyschogeographies" of distance and desire as viewed by the subaltern, the caste-bound, the racially mixed, the gender-determined."