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Call for papers for a volume on Modernism in the Mediterranean

Title: A Mediterranean Manifesto: Cultural Exchange and the Formation of a Modernist Aesthetic in the Mediterranean Basin

Eds. Adam J. Goldwyn (Uppsala University) and Renée M. Silverman (Florida International University)

Call for Papers:

For centuries, the Mediterranean Sea has at once divided and joined the various nations, cultures, language groups, and artistic traditions which have flourished in the Mediterranean basin: the Maghreb, Iberia, Southern Europe, the Balkans, the Levant, and Egypt. As a dividing line and barrier to intercultural exchange, it has allowed each of these regions and cultures to develop unique artistic traditions. As the major geographical feature binding these diverse cultures together, however, the Mediterranean Sea has also facilitated inter- and intra- cultural exchange, perhaps never more so than during the Modernist period. How did Modernist artistic and political movements interact in the Mediterranean, and in which directions did the manifestos issued by them circulate through the region? What was the impact of such circulation? And how did Mediterranean art and culture represent the historic and aesthetic tumult of the Modernist period?
This volume will examine Mediterranean Modernism and its legacy from an interdisciplinary and inter-/intra- cultural comparative perspective, focusing on literature, film, painting, music, architecture and other media. We welcome papers addressing any aspect of Modernism in the Mediterranean from its inception in the second half of the 19th century to after the Second World War. Topics may include:

• Mediterranean iterations of international movements such as Futurism and Surrealism.
• Innovation in genres and media (e.g. Futurist painting and poetry).
• Interaction and cultural exchange among two or more Mediterranean cultures (e.g. Alexandria’s Jewish, Arab, and French communities, or relations between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus).
• Intracultural exchange and the myriad forms of Modernism which emerged from a single Mediterranean location (such as Cavafy, Marinetti, Ungaretti, and Durrell in Alexandria).
• Modernist depictions of the Mediterranean itself during the period (in, for example, Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons of Cyprus or Henry Miller’s Colossus of Maroussi);
• The relationship between art, history, and politics (e.g. Futurism and Fascism or the avant-garde and different political movements, such as Communism).
• The formation of a Mediterranean identity (as, for instance, in the first two decades of the twentieth century in Catalan painting, and in the work of Catalan author and critic Eugeni D’Ors).

Papers on similar themes will also be considered.

E-mail one-to-two page abstracts with brief academic bio and institutional affiliation to Dr. Goldwyn at adam.goldwyn@lingfil.uu.se by September 15, 2012.