Avant-Garde and War

The 9th Conference of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM)
Cracow, Jagiellonian University , 17-19 September 2024

The term avant-garde – ‘advance guard’ or ‘vanguard’ – suggests military language and contexts related to violence, destruction, demolition, rebellion, and revolution. Descriptions of the historical avant-gardes as artistic and ideological formations accordingly often emphasize the turn against tradition, the rebellion against stagnant categories, the destructive potential of certain ideas, and the constant attempts to violently transgress boundaries in art. The substrate of the avant-gardes, also in the later 20th century and in our own, is conflict and destruction one of the guiding principles of avant-garde and modernist thought and practice being to build and create on the ruins of the past. War indeed is rarely absent from the avant-garde community of experience – whether as world wars, civil wars, terror, revolutions, totalitarianism, occupation, liberation struggles – so much so that some scholars see these events, especially the destructive power of the war machine, as the ‘tragic defeat of modernity’. However, our models of avant-garde and modernist practices across all of the arts up until the present day should not be limited to the self-image of the avant-gardes as revolutionaries, rebels and demolitionists.  Wars have also ushered in new beginnings, offering opportunities for avant-gardes to further their missions, or causing them to re-appraise and adapt to changed circumstances.

How, then, do the avant-gardes inhabit war – and how does war inhabit the avant-gardes?

The organizers invite innovative and freshly-researched proposals for creative and critical presentations – in all areas of avant-garde and modernist practice across all of the arts – which frame and re-frame our thinking about avant-gardism/modernism and war. Suggested topics include:

• war as a catalyst for the avant-garde

• avant-gardes as a catalyst for conflict
• avant-gardes at war
• avant-garde as a militaristic cultural formation
• the relation of artistic and social programs in times of war
• antiwar avant-gardes
• wartime fate of avant-garde artists
• military service and the home front
• national culture in times of civil war
• art across the frontline: the internationalism of art in times of division
• political and social instrumentalization of the arts during wartime
• avant-gardes and propaganda
• responses to the brutality of war
• the trauma of violence, rape, displacement and loss in avant-garde practice
• avant-gardes and the challenge of Shoah
• modernist identities and bodies in times of war
• feminist writers and artists on war
• industrial war
• the music of war
• avant-garde spaces in wartime
• living with/resisting occupation
• the end of war and the ‘rappel à l’ordre’
• defeat as a topic, problem and challenge
• avant-gardes and reconstruction in postwar societies
• avant-gardes in the nuclear age and during the Cold War
• avant-gardes in the struggle for decolonization
• war and revolution in the avant-garde imaginary
• anticipations of peace and war in avant-garde and modernist writing

We look forward to welcoming you in Cracow on 17-19 September 2024!

SUBMISSIONS

The official languages of this conference are English, French and German. You may submit a proposal for a panel or for an individual paper.

A panel consists of three or four speakers. One of the speakers is the chair who makes the submission and supplies the details and proposals of all of the proposed participants.  

Panels should not consist only of doctoral students.

 

You may submit an individual proposal without specifying a panel and the organisers will assign your paper to a panel if accepted.

Please send panel and individual proposals to: eam9cracow@gmail.com

Deadline for panel and individual proposals: 1 March 2024..

Acceptance of proposals will be notified via email in the end of April 2024. 

Conference registration fees will only be payable after this point.

Early-bird registration fee, up to June 5 2022: €170 ( €120 + €50 EAM membership fee)
Standard registration fee, June 6 to July 5: €200 (€150 + €50 EAM membership fee)

A  conference programe will be available on the EAM9 website before the summer.