Project Details
Projekt
Artifacts of the Avant-Gardes 1885–2015
Subject Area
General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
Term
from 2018 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406120086
The project "Artifacts of the Avant-garde 1885-2015" explores the history of European avant-gardes from their margins: the extraordinary paper artifacts which are distinctive for the ‘avant-garde of the avant-garde’ since Mallarmé, but have not yet received extensive critical attention. Their current return in hybrid media forms employing both digital and analog means as well as in text and image combinations in contemporary literature asks for comprehensive investigation of both the historic and the contemporary material. The project therefore aims to inspect, analyze and provide access to the artifacts in their historical and systematic contexts. The examination of these objects offers descriptions of specific styles and techniques of avant-garde writing as well as detailed reconstructions of the way particular artifacts negotiate the aesthetic, poetological, historical, and political dimensions of literature. The current interest for avant-garde techniques in digital media forms provides new ways of reflecting on the particular historical signatures of innovative styles of writing. The project is divided into three subprojects: (1) Mallarmés paper works, also in translations and transformations, (2) strategies for publication with hybrids of PDF and print-on-demand, and (3) artifacts with algorithmic architecture that oscillate between materiality and digitality. The project combines approaches from literary and from book and media studies, from material theory as well as from object-oriented and praxeological research. It seeks to provide a substantial contribution to the provision and discussion of historic and contemporary works of the ‘avant-gardes of the avant-garde’.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
