Call for papers: MODERNIST DISASSOCIATIONS

Characterized by collectives, avant-garde alliances, salons, magazines, manifestos, mergers and ruptures, the modernisms of the first half of the 20th century were an associative affair. The exemplary “moderns,” however eclectic a group, joined in revolt against the forms and pieties of the 19th century, spurring aesthetic innovation and energizing modernity’s political, cultural, and technological revolutions.

But what about those who – whether by choice, ignorance, or circumstance – disassociate? What does it mean to be a dropout, dissenter, or dilettante estranged from (or a stranger to) modernism? In order to broach these and other questions, this panel seeks papers on writers, artists, and musicians whose work, intentionally or not, snubs groupthink, possibly turning against the progressive, political, technological and revolutionary attitudes we tend to associate with modernism.