Cross-Channel Modernisms

Book excerpt: Explores modernist aesthetics and cultural exchange in Britain, France and beyond Offers cutting-edge explorations of different aspects of artistic exchange between Britain and France, written by experts on both sides of the ChannelProvides original close readings of canonical and marginalised modernist textsOpens up new conceptual paradigms by probing multiple meanings related to 'crossing' and 'channelling' modernismOrganises chapters around three key themes of 'translating', 'fashioning', 'mediating' that intervene in the new modernist studiesDescribed by Katherine Mansfield in 1921 as 'a great cold sword between you and your dear love Adventure', in the early twentieth century the English Channel, or 'La Manche' in French, represented both a political and intellectual barrier between European avant-gardism and British restraint, and a bridge for cultural connection and aesthetic innovation. Organised around key terms 'Translating', 'Fashioning' and 'Mediating', this book presents ten original essays by scholars working on both sides of the Channel. Cross-Channel Modernisms historicises artistic exchangesa ina Britain, France and beyond and proposes a rich conceptual apparatus of 'crossings' and 'channels' through which we can read modernism and understand it as emerging from, and intervening in, an always-already shifting, multivalent,a internationala context.