Legacies of Modernism: Art and Politics in Northern Europe, 1890-1950(Studies in European Culture and History)

Between 1890 and 1950 modernist art and culture set out to challenge century-old notions of the individual and the community, culture and politics, morality and freedom, placing into question the very foundations of Western civilization. The essays in this volume present a novel assessment of various manifestations of modernism in Germany and Scandinavia by posing the question of its critical and political impact beyond traditional polarities such as right vs. left, illiberalism vs. Enlightenment, apolitical vs. engaged. In drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, including literary studies, art history, film and visual studies, urban studies, musicology, political theory, and the history of science and technology, the essays in this volume reexamine modernism's bold inquiry into areas such as the relation of art to technology and mass politics, the limits of liberal democracy, the reconceptualization of urban spaces, and the realignment of traditional art forms following the rise of new media such as film. The volume's contributors share a belief in the timeliness of modernism's critical impulse for a contemporary age confronted with ethical and political dilemmas that the modernists first articulated and to which they attempted to respond.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Future's Past: Modernism, Critique, and the Political; P.C.McBride PART I: HIGH, LOW, AND OTHER: THE POLITICS OF MUSIC Hans Pfitzner and the Anxiety of Nostalgic Modernism; M.A.Weiner Gustav Mahler Visits Amsterdam; C.Niekerk PART II: MODERNISM/ANTIMODERNISM, RACE AND EUGENICS IN SCANDINAVIA The Resistance to Modernism in Karl Gjellerup's Germanernes Lærling (1882); P.Houe Knut Hamsun's "White Negro" from Ringen Sluttet (1936) or the Politics of Race; M.Zagar Eugenics and the Role of Science: The Scandinavian Case; N.Roll-Hansen PART III: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND GERMAN MODERNISM Reactionary Engineers? Technocracy and the Kulturfaktor Technik in Weimar; A.Michel The Uncultured Eye: Developments in the Life Sciences in the Context of German Modernisms; T.O.Haakenson PART IV: ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING IN WEIMAR MODERNITY Imagining the New Berlin: Modernism, Mass Utopia, and the Architectural Avant-garde; S.Hake Re-Building Babel: Urban Regeneration in the Modern/Postmodern Age; J.Ward PART V: THE POLITICS OF VISUAL CULTURE: WEIMAR, EXILE, AND POSTWAR Politicizing Painting: The Case of New Objectivity; M.Makela Modernism from Weimar to Hollywood: Expressionism/New Objectivity/Noir?; R.W.McCormick Clement Greenberg and the Postwar Modernist Canon: Minimizing the Role of Germany and Northern Europe; M.Rohn PART VI: THE POLITICS OF VISUAL CULTURE IN THE THIRD REICH Framing Sight: Modernism and Nazi Visual Culture; L.Koepnick A Woman Beside Herself: Art and its Other in Nazi Movies; LSchulte-Sasse PART VII: MODERNIST POLITICS NOW: CRITIQUES OF LIBERALISM The Stakes of the Political According to Carl Schmitt; C.Mouffe Sovereignty and Its Discontents; W.Rasch

About the Author :
PATRIZIA MCBRIDE is an Associate Professor of German at the University of Minnesota, USA. RICHARD W.MCCORMICK is Professor of German, Department and the Director of Honors-College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, USA. MONIKA ZAGAR is an Associate Professor of Scandinavian at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA.

Review :
'This excellent collection of essays provides a rich and complete panorama of the main dimensions in which modernism, as an epochal cultural phenomenon, received, extended, but also undermined the intellectual tradition of modernity. It is unusual to find the cultural legacy of a period addressed from so many angles and with such depth and insight.' - Ernesto Laclau, Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Rhetorical Studies, Northwestern University