Journals and literary strategies in 'Van Nu en Straks': career plans with 'Iris' (1908) and 'Nieuw Leven' (1907-1910)

Verbruggen Christophe. Tijdschriften en literaire strategieën na Van Nu en Straks·. Carriereplannen met Iris ( 1908) en Nieuw Leven ( 1907-1910). In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 83, fasc. 4, 2005. Histoire medievale, moderne et contemporaine - Middeleeuwse. moderne en hedendaagse geschiedenis. pp. 1261-1286

Rencontres intellectuelles et changement social: Henri La Fontaine et la Belle Époque

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Transgenerational brokering: the case for symbolism and surrealism in Flanders

In the self-definition of writers and literary critics, it is not uncommon for literary 'movements' and 'generations' to be used as synonyms. In this article we focus on theories on generations, literary generations and the phenomenon of transgenerational mediation. Based on the cases of symbolism and surrealism in general and PG. (Gust) van Hecke (1887-1967) and Marc. Eemans (1907-1997) in particular, we argue that mediators who crossed borders in time (generations), in language (French and Dutch) and in space (Belgium) often remain out of sight in the study of literary movements. But by focusing on cultural brokers such as van Hecke and Eemans, we show that it is possible to adjust the prevailing history of surrealism in the Dutch and French speaking literature

Ego and the international. The modernist circle of George Sarton

The early years of Isis are examined in the light of George Sarton’s connection with Paul Otlet (1868 –1944) and Henri Lafontaine (1854 –1943), founders in 1895 of the International Office of Bibliography and in 1907 of the Union of International Associations, both in Brussels. Otlet, known as one of the fathers of the Information Age, invented the science of information, which he called, in French, documentation. Lafontaine, a socialist senator in Belgium, won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Peace. Sarton shared Otlet and Lafontaine’s views about pacifism, internationalism, and rational bibliography; he designed Isis to fit with the modernist goal, expressed by Otlet and Lafontaine, of using information to generate new knowledge

Perspectieven op moderniteit, tijd en ruime: een inleiding

Perspectives on modernity, time and space. An introduction. The Universal Exhibition that took place in Ghent in 1913, on the eve of the Great War, is easily interpreted as the swansong of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie. Yet, the period between 1900 and 1914 can also be perceived as the breakpoint of modernity, when the conditions for a more egalitarian society were created. Several things were in flux in 1913. Under societal pressure, one social experiment after the other was unleashed upon the population. Women, workers, and in Flanders also Dutch-speaking intellectuals laid claim to their share of public space and democracy. Furthermore, the Ghent factories functioned with full speed, and the city’s skyline was dominated no longer by bell towers but by smoking factory towers. The Universal Exhibition succeeded in bridging the apparent contradictions of the moment: modernity and tradition, modernity and anti-modernity, men and , civilized and primitive, labour and capital, reason and nostalgia. Through spectacular settings, universal exhibitions presented the separation between the real contradictions of capitalist production and the dream world of consumer culture as if they were unified, whereas in social realty they were actually divided. The Ghent spectacle may have removed itself from social reality, but at the same time it was an illusory refuge where the frictions of alienation that accompanied modernity were neutralized. One of the separations that the Universal Exhibition sought to reconcile was that between Western and colonial cultures. The Congo pavilion with its huge panorama, the Street of Caïro, and the exhibition of the daily life of complete Senegalese and Philippine villages underscored the binary opposition between ‘us’ and ‘the Other’ in a spectacular display. The forces of industrialization were also addressed. In a didactic, immersive environment called the Modern Village, modernization of the agricultural sector was humanized. But also, attractions such as the Scenic Railway or the Waterchute, made the distance between humans and machines merge in a synergetic pleasure of movement and acceleration. However, the most prominent contradiction that the World’s Fair sought to resolve was that between modernity and history. A beautiful poster designed by Léon Spillaert was not used by the organizing committee, as it showed the new Bell Tower of Ghent in juxtaposition with smoking chimneys of factories. The official advertising posters instead presented Ghent as a ‘city of monuments and flowers’. In ‘Old Flanders’, a neo-medieval collage of picturesque buildings which existed or had existed, as well as the ‘Palaces of Cities’, history was reanimated by means of simulation. The same nostalgia had been the source for the renewal of the inner city of Ghent by means of historicizing reconstructions

Gent 1913: op het breukvlak van de moderniteit

In 1913 streek het fenomeen van de wereldtentoonstelling neer in Gent. Aan de vooravond van de Eerste Wereldoorlog, toonde dit evenement een samenleving op het breukvlak van de moderniteit. Veel was in beweging in 1913. Vrouwen, arbeiders en in Vlaanderen ook Nederlandstalige intellectuelen eisten hun plaats op in de publieke ruimte en de verruimde democratie. Op spectaculaire wijze slaagde de wereldtentoonstelling er in een hele reeks maatschappelijke tegenstellingen te overbruggen zoals arbeid en industrie, en de westerse en de koloniale cultuur. De belangrijkste tegenstelling die de wereldtentoonstelling in Gent wou oplossen was echter deze tussen moderniteit en geschiedenis