Description
Book SynopsisOne of the defining features of modernism lies in its far-reaching rethinking of the relation between the human and the non-human. In the present volume, this crucial aspect of modernism’s legacy is investigated from an authentically transnational perspective, taking an innovative stance on a diverse range of authors – from posthumanist classics such as Beckett and Woolf to Valentine de Saint-Point, Radoje Domanovic and Aldo Palazzeschi among others. On the one hand, this collection sheds new light on the modernist contribution to posthumanism, providing a valuable reference point for future studies on the topic. On the other, it offers a new take on the transnational dimension of modernism, highlighting unexplored convergences between modernist authors from several different national contexts.
Table of ContentsList of Figures Notes on Contributors Introduction Alberto Godioli and Carmen van den Bergh Part 1 Modernism and the Nonhuman 1 Prefiguring Modernist Posthumanism: Baudelaire, Rimbaud and the Objectification of the Lyric Self Alessandro Cabiati 2 Becoming-Digit: Valentine de Saint-Point’s Posthumanist Futurism Pavlina Radia 3 Politics of Identity: Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Poetry of the Great War Between Nomadic Subjectivity and Performative Realism Enrica Maria Ferrara 4 Variations On “Maquinismo”: Looking Beyond the Human in Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s Writings ngela Fernandes 5 The Tender Being of Something Else: Geography and Lists in Gertrude Stein’s Ida Laura Oulanne 6 Samuel Beckett and Modernist Vitalism Marc Farrant Part 2 Modernist Animals 7 Rumination of a Serbian Ox: Radoje Domanovic’s Satire of Anthropocentric Folly Vedran Catovic 8 “Come se”: Transcending the Human-Animal Divide in Pirandello’s Short Stories Santi Luca Famà 9 Modernist Exiles: the Berlin Years of Viktor Shklovsky, Aleksei Remizov, and the Masturbating Ape Asiya Bulatova 10 “Brandishing Her Plumes”: Virginia Woolf, Feather Tropes, and the Plumage (Prohibition) Bill Saskia McCracken 11 Posthumanism avant la lettre: Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities and the Boundaries of Humankind Florian Kappeler 12 Animals and Logos in Samuel Beckett’s Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable Laura Lainväe 13 Towards an Interpretation of a Modernist Bestiary in Color: Palazzeschi’s Bestie Del 900 and Maccari’s Illustrations Sarah Bonciarelli Index
