Inventing modernism: An institutional history

Inventing Modernism: An Institutional History examines the appeal of early-twentieth-century experimental literature to the US literary left throughout the twentieth century. The study explains this appeal as the result of the struggle of the literary left to integrate its politics with its cultural theory. Modernism, the project claims, was a product of that struggle. Specifically, "Modernism" was the name of the cultural theory that the literary left invented in its effort to manage the contradiction of being both "literary" and "left." The fact that these categories were supposed to be contradictory is an important part of the analysis. This theory was identified with early-twentieth-century experimental literature.; The study looks at how the cultural radicals, the Nashville group, and the New York Intellectuals "invented" Modernism in the aftermath of the first Red Scare and, later, the Cold War. The project begins with a discussion of how the earliest advocates of early-twentieth-century experimental literature included political radicals like Max Eastman (the editor of The Masses) as well as the relatively apolitical editors of the "little magazines," such as Harriet Monroe (the editor of Poetry). During the 1910s in particular, these groups believed that art---especially modernist art---had the power to effect social and political change as well as to provide aesthetic pleasure. This theory was rejected when Cold-War Liberals chose modernist literature to represent the ideal of literary autonomy that had been threatened during the Stalinist era. Consequently, when early-twentieth-century experimental literature was taken-up by the university in the early 1960s, it was valued predominately for its formal, and therefore "neutral" attributes; its early history as an inspiration to both literary critics and political radicals was, in a sense, forgotten. The project attempts to recover that history. The study ends with an examination of the juncture between Modernism and Postmodernism, and argues that the central discursive function of Postmodernism during the 1960s and 1970s ultimately was to articulate the cultural politics of the nascent neoconservative movement. Inventing Modernism: An Institutional History concludes with a call to continue the efforts of the literary left to elevate the role of the public intellectual.