Literary and political perspectives in Italian futurism : a study in the periodization of the works of F.T. Marinetti

This study deals with the works of F. T. Marinetti between 1898 and 1938, giving special emphasis to the years 1909 to 1920, covering the 'periods eroico' of Futurism. I seek to illuminate the special relationship between Marinetti and Futurism which is the central topic of this study, beginning with the prelude to Futurism and continuing through its course until 1938. I trace the development in Marinetti of those ideas which he brought to Futurism and to this end I consider the literary and political background of the time in Italy and France, as well as examining Marinetti's own writings.I then trace the evolution of Futurism in both the literary and the political sphere and discuss its interaction with individuals and movements in the contemporary literary scene in Europe. With the outbreak of the First World War there is a clear watershed between the early Futurism and its·later manifestation, as issues come to the fore which will also dominate post-war Italian politics. As an experience with long-term effects on those involved, the war enjoys a prominent position in this study. It also provides the link between Futurism and Fascism, an association which is still a source of controversy today. The importance of this chapter in the history of the movement is reflected in its extensive discussion in this study.This study re-assesses the view of Marinetti and Futurism generally advanced. I also seek to redress the tendency to divorce these events from their historical content

Un ventre di donna. Romanzo chirurgico. A co-authored novel in Italian Futurism

This essay focuses on 20th-century Italian co-authored literature. I define co-authored literature as a literary practice that entails the active and conscious co-operation of two or more authors. This approach leads to an innovative, argumentative and unpredictable interpenetration (compensation), which is the result of the various authorial contributions. In the first part of the seminar, I will analyze the ways in which co-authored writing practice affects the authors' choice of genre. In order to effectively investigate this issue, I survey a set of literary works published by two or more authors in Western context from 1700 to 2013. This quantitative research led me to highlight some significant recurrent characteristics. In the second part, I will focus my attention on a co-authored novel in Italian Futurism entitled Un ventre di donna: romanzo chirurgico, who can help me underline the relationship between the concept of multi-authorship and Modernity

Cultural Revolution: Mykhail Semenko, Ukrainian Futurism and the “National” Category

This paper examines Mykhail Semenko’s Futurist manifestos that developed an opposition between “national” and “international” art, and specifically called “national” art provincial and retrograde. In promoting the international European avant-garde, Semenko’s essays demonstrate how consistently he championed a contemporary and modern Ukrainian culture in the face of home-grown conservatism

Dadaism (Re)activated. Artzins and Dada

The article analyses in what way artzins (independent art and literary journals published in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s) drew inspiration from the Dada tradition, and how they made its philosophy live again. Artzins are seen here both as a medium of literature and art and as specific forms of artistic expression (press art). The article attempts to show why artzins and their authors were interested in reviving the avant-garde and Dada ideas. It also investigates how Dadaism functions today in the form of contemporary works and styles which are influenced by this avant-garde movement. What is more, the article tries to answer the question about the nature and definition of Dadaism shaped and reflected by today's artistic projects

The popular and the avant-garde: performance, incorporation and resistance

Many modernists in the late nineteenth century harboured a strong suspicion of the emerging mass culture produced for the working classes. Adopting a position similar to Matthew Arnold’s (2009) that culture was the speciality of a cultured few, and not the uneducated working classes, some sought to protect ‘high art’ from ‘low’ mass forms. Modernists associated with the avant-garde, however, do not appear to have held such rigid views; and for Peter Bürger (1984) this is what distinguishes it from modernism. Historical avant-garde artists tended to be more forthcoming about their connections to other cultural forms, not only acknowledging mass and popular culture, but openly co-opting and integrated it into their art. Bürger sees this not only as part of the avant-garde’s resistance to modernism, but its ‘attack on the status of art in bourgeois society’ (1984, 49). In this paper I will interrogate the tensions between these two modernist positions, and will consider the ways that mass and popular culture forms became an important tool for aesthetic experimentation amongst avant-garde artists. I will focus on three distinct areas in which such experimentation occurred: early Parisian cabaret, Futurism and Dada. In doing so, the paper aims to do two things: (1) to demonstrate the fundamental role that popular and mass cultural forms played in the development of avant-garde aesthetics; and (2) to show how, through such appropriation, avant-garde practices intended to critique mass culture, the belief in high and low art categories, and the capitalist system responsible for their production

Strange Interferences : Modernism and Conservativism vs. Avant-Garde, Hungary, 1910’s

It is a highly peculiar phenomenon in Hungarian – and perhaps in East and Central European – literature of the early 20th century that Avant-Garde tendencies started to gain some (weak) position parallel with the first wave of Modernism, and when they received – understandably – a rather hostile reaction on the part of Conservative (nationalistic, traditional, anti-Western) literary circles, their reception on the part of the evolving Modernist literature was not much more friendly either. Strangely enough, besides some signals of solidarity and sympathy, the criticisms of Modernism turned against Avant-Garde were in harmony with those formulated by the Conservative circles. However, as the Latin saying goes, “duo cum faciunt idem, non est idem” (that is, when two do the same thing, it is not the same thing) – despite the apparent interference of Modernist and Conservative criticism aimed against Avant-Garde tendencies, the position of the actors in question was radically different. In what follows, I give a short account of the Avant-Gardists’ debate with their Modernist contemporaries and an even shorter account of their debate with Conservative adversaries

Speculative Possibilities

An exciting movement in literature (as well as art, music, gaming, and other forms of media) that is presently exploding throughout our media streams in the twenty-first century is that of Indigenous futurism. This concept, which owes its namesake to scholar Grace L. Dillon and her work Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (2012), seeks to explore the possibilities of alternate pasts, presents, and futures, offering a fresh perspective on the beauty, power, and resilience of Indigeneity. One writer delving into this movement is Stephen Graham Jones, prolific author of many novels and short stories including his most recent works The Babysitter Lives (2022), The Backbone of the World (2022), “Attack of the 50 Foot Indian” (2021), “How to Break into a Hotel Room” (2021), My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), “Wait for the Night” (2020), Night of the Mannequins (2020), and “The Guy with the Name” (2020), and The Only Good Indians (2020). Although Jones’s contributions to the literary world are extensive, there has been relatively little scholarship dedicated to his continuous experimenting in varying genres, forms, and subject matters. Likewise, scholarship on Indigenous futurism is also quite scarce, especially as it is developed through the literary genre of horror fiction. This work extends both scholarly conversations by analyzing Jones’s The Only Good Indians as a work of Indigenous futurism, specifically as it relates to rewriting the past, present, and future through various methods of Native slipstream. Fictional newspaper headlines and articles, a concentrated insistence on rationalization coupled with the inability to achieve such measures, and varying points of view combine to create a novel that is a hauntingly beautiful depiction of resiliency and possibility for an alternative future in which Indigenous worldviews replace the damaging cycles created and perpetuated by Western ideologies—positioning The Only Good Indians as an exceptional contribution to the field of Indigenous futurism, in addition to substantiating that both horror and futuristic fiction can serve as an effective medium of decolonization. Keywords: Indigenous futurism, decolonization, horror, Stephen Graham Jones, speculative fictio

FUTURISM: VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKI'S URBANISM AND FUTURIST OUTLOOK

This article analyzes the poetry of Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovski (1893-1930), renowned as a main figure of the Russian Futurist movement. The study first introduces the futurist movement in literature that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century and locates it within formalist theory. Then, it dwells upon the characteristics of futurist poetry since this was the genre the futurists were mostly concerned with. The study moves towards its main objective by examining two characteristic poems, Morning (1912) and A Skyscraper Dissected (1929), bearing in mind the theme of urbanism which is common in the futurist literary movement. This analysis attempts to prove that Mayakovski used the theme of urbanism to criticize modern city life, unlike other futurists who used this theme to glorify it. The study will also look at an important aspect of Mayakovski’s poem About This in which he imagines life in the future. To carry out this thematic study, a critically analytical and descriptive method is used