Vés enrere Flanders and Catalonia, Centres and Peripheries in Artistic Movements 1890-1940. Government of Flanders. (01/01/2021-30/06/2022). Pfeiffer, Michael (IP)

Flanders and Catalonia, Centres and Peripheries in Artistic Movements 1890-1940. Government of Flanders. (01/01/2021-30/06/2022). Pfeiffer, Michael (IP)

Flanders and Catalonia, Centres and Peripheries in Artistic Movements 1890-1940. Government of Flanders. (01/01/2021-30/06/2022). Pfeiffer, Michael (IP)

After the emergence of the European nation-states in the 19th century, the avant-garde movements in Flanders and Catalonia developed before and after the turn of the century as complex literary-artistic movements that acted across countries and continents as well as across genres. Around that point in time, the binary concept of centre and periphery became more and more questionable.

This leads to a series of questions: Were the artistic movements in Flanders and Catalonia between 1890 and 1940 peripheral phenomena, or the opposite, depending on the eye of the beholder? The situation of Flanders and Catalonia was especially complex: as parts of Europe, they belonged to a centre, but within the continent they competed with other artistic circles. Furthermore, looking at the inner regional constellations within Flanders and Catalonia, one finds again a net of many centres and peripheries, the same structure that can be found in the work of art itself.

This research project will work out the numerous interdependencies, similarities and differences of the Flemish and Catalan avant-gardes in a European context by combining methods from the history and theory of literature. The groups of the Central European metropolises, which have already been adequately researched, will be completed among others with flemish and catalan artistic groups.

The aim is to discover the avant-garde as a polycentric network and multidirectional space for movement and to question the existing paradigm of center and periphery. Particular attention will be paid to, inter alia, Kurt Köhler and J. V. Foix and Paul van Ostaijen, one of the most central figures of the Flemish avant-garde movement. Flanders will celebrate Van Ostaijen's 125th birthday in 2021 and honor it with numerous events.

The two-year research project will enable a team of international experts to conduct joint research on the above-mentioned questions and, in addition to intensive literary research in archives and libraries, also a study Day 2021 and an international conference with a subsequent publication of the contributions.

The integrative approach of this project, which connects prominent avant-gardes with their regional stories, sees itself as a bridge and dialogue offer to global challenges of our present in Europe. The project will expand the idea of a transnational concept of literature by including the Flemish and the Catalan literature and thereby establish a more complex concept of the global in literary theory and history.

 

Investigadors principals

Pfeiffer, Michael

Flanders: State of the Art