Modernism: Keywords

Guided by the historical semantics developed in Raymond Williams' pioneering study of cultural vocabulary, Modernism: Keywords presents a series of short entries on words used with frequency and urgency in “written modernism,” tracking cultural and literary debates and transformative moments of change.

Short-listed for The Modernist Studies Association 2015 Book Prize for an Edition, Anthology, or Essay Collection

• Highlights and exposes the salient controversies and changing cultural thought at the heart of modernism
• Goes beyond constructions of “plural modernisms” to reveal all modernist writing as overlapping and interactive in a simultaneous and interlocking mix
• Draws from a vast compilation of more than a thousand sources, ranging from vernacular prose to experimental literary forms
• Spans the “long” modernist period, from its incipient beginnings c.1880 to its post-WWII aftermath
• Approaches English written modernism in its own terms, tempering explanations of modernism often derived from European poets and painters
• Models research techniques based on digital databases and collaborative work in the humanities

Keywords: literature, modernist studies, Raymond Williams, written modernism, scholarly reference, semantics, avant-garde, bloomsbury, biography, Einstein, fascism, modern, realism, sentimentality, new woman, words, language, Literary Theory, 20th Century English Literature, Literary Theory, 20th Century English Literature