The Poetics of the Avant-garde in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy presents a range of chapters written by a highly international group of scholars from disciplines such as literary studies, arts, theatre, and philosophy to analyze the ambitions of avant-garde artists. Together, these essays highlight the interdisciplinary scope of the historic avant-garde and the interconnected of its artists.

Contributors analyze topics such as abstraction and estrangement across the arts, the imaginary dialogue between Lev Yakubinsky and Mikhail Bakhtin, the problem of the “masculine ethos” in the Russian avant-garde, the transformation of barefoot dancing, Kazimir Malevich’s avant-garde poetic experimentations, the ecological imagination of the Polish avant-garde, science-fiction in the Russian avant-garde cinema, and the almost forgotten history of the avant-garde children’s literature in Germany. The chapters in this collection open a new critical discourse about the avant-garde movement in Europe and reshape contemporary understandings of it.

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This collection offers new perspectives on the interdisciplinary scope of the historic avant-garde and highlights the interconnectedness of its artists from a variety of national and disciplinary perspectives.

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Chapter 1: Abstraction and Estrangement across the Arts in the Russian Avant-garde

Norbert Francis

Chapter 2: L. P. Yakubinsky and M. M. Bakhtin: A Brief History of a ‘Dialogue’ that Never Really Was

Chapter 3: “Strong, Manly and Bold”: The Russian Avant-Garde and its Masculine Mantra

Tim Harte

Chapter 4: Flying Too Close to the Sun: Impersonations of Duncan in Russia

Mark Konecny

Chapter 5: Role of the Newspaper Art of the Commune in the Establishment of Proletarian Art

Natalia Murray

Chapter 6: Malevich’s “Ule Elye Lel”: A Suprematist’s Avant-garde Poetic Experimentations

Margarita Marinova

Chapter 7: The Ecological Avant-garde: Arkady Fiedler’s The River of Singing Fish

Ida Day

Chapter 8: Science Fiction in the Russian Avant-garde Cinema of the 1920s and Anarchism

Olga Burenina-Petrova

Chapter 9: Moscow Conceptualism, Post-Suprematism, and Beyond: Reimagining the Russian Avant-garde

Mary A. Nicholas

Chapter 10: The Bauhaus and the Children: An Almost Forgotten History of Avant-garde Children’s Literature

Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer

Chapter 11: The Problems of Translation and Popularization of Russian Avant-garde Texts in the West

Irina Evdokimova

Chapter 12: A Radical Emigré: Naum Gabo and the Legacy of the October Revolution

Christina Lodder

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