Modernism: Keywords (Keywords in Literature and Culture)

Guided by the historical semantics developed in Raymond Williams' pioneering study of cultural vocabulary, Modernism: Keywords presents a series of short entries on words used with frequency and urgency in “written modernism,” tracking cultural and literary debates and transformative moments of change.

Highlights and exposes the salient controversies and changing cultural thought at the heart of modernism
Goes beyond constructions of “plural modernisms” to reveal all modernist writing as overlapping and interactive in a simultaneous and interlocking mix
Draws from a vast compilation of more than a thousand sources, ranging from vernacular prose to experimental literary forms
Spans the “long” modernist period, from its incipient beginnings c.1880 to its post-WWII aftermath
Approaches English written modernism in its own terms, tempering explanations of modernism often derived from European poets and painters
Models research techniques based on digital databases and collaborative work in the humanities