Modernism and Little Magazines
Contributions are invited for a volume of critical essays exploring the role
of little magazines in the development of modernism.
Although critical interest in modernist little magazines has been fairly
sustained over the years, no single volume has explored their range, scope,
and interpretive possibilities since the 1946 publication of Hoffman, Allen,
and Ulrich's The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography. While
Hoffman's book is an indespensable reference tool, it largely offers breadth
and summary, rather than depth and analysis. Our goal is to address this
critical gap. In Repression and Recovery, Cary Nelson outlines an approach
to the study of little magazines that to some extent animates our volume.
Nelson argues that, in addition to providing students of modernism with
important historical information, little magazines offer unique
opportunities for critique, close reading, and interpretation:
The challenge, at least in some cases, is to read journals
as if they were themselves coherent and mixed genres, as if they were books
like Cane or Spring & All that meld and juxtapose traditional genres. Not
all journals, of course, are such coherent enterprises, but some are, and
offer perspectives on American culture that are simply unavailable in
volumes by individual authors (181).
Little magazines were essential to the development of modernism, but too
often they have been treated merely as background material or as blank
canvases for modernist artistic experimentation. By bringing little
magazines to the foreground for consideration and analysis, we will
demonstrate that they still have much to teach us about the aesthetics,
politics, and practices of the first decades of the twentieth century.
Little magazines sometimes galvanized their readers, but just as often they
shocked and even repelled their audiences. Some attracted relatively broad
readerships, while other little magazines--sometimes the most
influential--were noticed only by small coteries of avant garde artists and
political radicals. Sometimes these magazines even incurred governmental
wrath and censorship. In short, these publications pulsed with the
excitement of their times. By reading little magazines carefully, we can
see how they set the stage for surprising collaborative efforts, wove webs
of interaction and influence, set trends, established and ruined
reputations, and shaped the course of modernism.
We are seeking essays that exemplify a range of critical approaches to the
study of little magazines. Essays might analyze the historical origins,
social settings, cultural significance, political associations, literary
influences, or pedagogical uses of little magazines, individually or
collectively. We currently have commitments from six scholars in the field
and are in communication with potential publishers. Send 250-word abstracts
by August 1, 2000 to Suzanne Churchill (suchurchill@davidson.edu) and Adam
McKible (amckible@earthlink.net).
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