Reassembling Modernism: Anglo-French Networks, Periodicals, Literary Analysis

This project examines Anglo-French literary networks at the beginning of the twentieth century. If scholars have traditionally focused on American, British, or French authors in isolation, the present study explores their interconnections. It uncovers a number of hitherto unstudied relations and hints at their importance for the development of modernism as an international cultural movement. In order to map the cultural networks between American, British and French authors, a flexible methodological framework needs to be developed first. This framework draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the field of cultural production, social network analysis and actor-network theory. Secondly, the project maps cross-cultural interactions via a study of periodicals, anthologies and salons. Given the importance of the periodical press for transnational cultural relations, it zooms in a network of European periodicals including the Mercure de France, the English Review, the Nouvelle Revue Française, the Anglo-French Review, the Criterion, and the Transatlantic Review. Finally, the project zooms in on specific author collaborations and associations: the links between the British author Ford Madox Ford and the French author René Béhaine, the friendship between the American poet Gertrude Stein and the French communist duchess Elisabeth de Gramont, and the relationship between the French author André Gide and his British translator Dorothy Bussy. In addition to uncovering little-known figures and materials, the project shows the entanglement of national cultures at the beginning of the twentieth century. periodical