Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

Dystopian visions in the avant-garde and modernist short story

Kimber, G. (2014) Dystopian visions in the avant-garde and modernist short story. Panel Presentation presented to: Utopia: Fourth Bi-annual Conference of the European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies (EAM 2014), Helsinki, Finland, 29-31 August 2014. (Unpublished)

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Panel Presentation)
Abstract: If we view Modernism and Avant-gardism as artistic languages of rupture, then the renaissance of the short story form in the early twentieth-century often reflected this rupture and was utilized to considerable effect by certain authors. Incorporating literary experimentation, the genre’s potential for fragmentation, disturbance and complexity mirrors the dystopian worldview of the period in question. Sometimes reflecting a Bakhtinian notion of conflicting narrative voices, together with a Freudian concept of the uncanny, the short story would emerge as a radical avant-garde and modernist vehicle, questioning traditional forms, the importance of the narrator, and the overall relationship of the author to the reader. Wyndham Lewis, for example, in his own short stories, exemplified the Vorticist stances of detachment and dynamic form. Other writers whose stories reveal this experimental mode include James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Katherine Mansfield, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Richardson and May Sinclair.
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN3427 Special kinds of fiction. Fiction genres
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN56 Themes and subjects in literature > PN56.M54 Modernism
Creators: Kimber, Gerri
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing
University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Faculties > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing
Research Centres > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Date: 31 August 2014
Date Type: Presentation
Event Title: Utopia: Fourth Bi-annual Conference of the European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies (EAM 2014)
Event Dates: 29-31 August 2014
Event Location: Helsinki, Finland
Event Type: Conference
Language: English
Status: Unpublished
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/6930

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