Transatlantic modernism

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Modernism in Europe and modernism in the United States – at first glance these two concepts seem to be quite different if not opposing. European modernism, it appears, is innovative and even iconoclastic (Joyce, Schönberg, Gropius, Schwitters). American modernism, it would seem, is rather reconciliatory and even conservative (Fitzgerald, Gershwin, Wright and Hopper). The collection of essays in ‘Transatlantic Modernism’ disproves this point. ‘Transatlantic Modernism’ tackles the modes of transfer, translation, cross-fertilization and reinterpretation which actually characterize the complex relations between European and American cultures within the period of modernism. The essays collected in this volume cover a broad array of forms of cultural expression: literature (Döblin, Dos Passos, Faulkner etc.), philosophy (Bergson, James, Dewey), painting (Gleizes, Stella, Shahn), photography (Ray, Steichen, Sheeler), fashion (Poiret, Delaunay, Schiaparelli), film (Fox, Stroheim, Lubitsch), architecture (Bauhaus, Johnson, Hitchcock) and opera (Thomson, Stein).