global modernism | Page 3 | Modernism / Modernity Print+

Before Global Modernism: Comparing Renaissance, Reform, and Rewriting in the Global South

Fig. 1. Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore, July 14, 1930. Photograph by Martin Vos. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Field Reports

“Field Reports” will offer lively and timely introductions to important aspects of modernisms from a wide range of languages, nations, and regions. Aimed at a non-specialist audience, they might introduce a newly discovered archive, a recent cluster of groundbreaking articles or books, an exhibition visited, or a major translation. If you have long thought the journal's readers should know more about Greek surrealism, estridentismo, or the Bengali or Harlem Renaissances, this is a place to start. Readers who would like to see a particular topic discussed or who are interested in contributing can post comments or write directly to c-bush@northwstern.edu.

Fielding Questions

The study of literary modernism has expanded so dramatically over the past few decades that I’ve heard more than one colleague ask in exasperation, “Well, then, what isn’t modernism?” As Stephen Colbert might ask: is this a great problem to have . . . or the greatest? Almost certainly the latter, but even so, such dynamism and growth bring challenges: so much to read, compelling us to choose from among the now-dizzying array of possibilities, according to criteria that are themselves subject to change.