A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925

A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925 is the first publication to deal with the avant-garde in the Nordic countries at the start of the twentieth century. The essays cover a wide range of avant-garde manifestations in arts and culture: literature, the visual arts, painting as well as photography, architecture and design, film, radio, and performing arts like music, theatre and dance. It is the first major historical work to consider the Nordic avant-garde in a transnational perspective which includes all the arts and to discuss the role of the avant-garde not only within the aesthetic field, but in a broader cultural context. It examines the social and cultural context of the avant-garde: its media, its locations, its reception and audiences, the transmissions between Scandinavia and Europe, and its cultural consequences. The essays trace the connections between the avant-garde and the cultural discourses of contemporary currents such as revolutionary socialism, radical nationalism and occultism, and discuss questions of gender, ideology and politics, geographical location and technological innovation. The cultural history thus focuses on the role of the avant-garde in shaping the ideas of cultural modernity in the Nordic countries.

Review:

With The Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925, the Nordic Network for Avant-garde studies has presented a generally impressive first volume of a cultural history of the avant-garde in Northern Europe on which continuation we will wait with excitement. We really wish for both the network and the publisher that they will have the necessary long breath to bring cultural history of northern European avant-garde to its end. By Stephan Michael Schroder (Koln), Nordeuropaforum, 2014 pp. 42-46. Full tekst available: http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/nordeuropaforum/2014-/schroeder-stephan-michael-42/PDF/schroeder.pdf