EAM 4: UTOPIA
The 4th conference of the European Avant-Garde and Modernism Network will take place
in Helsinki on 29-31 August, 2014. Conference organiser is Marja Härmänmaa:
marja.harmanmaa@helsinki.fi
Modernism and Avant-gardism are mainly understood in terms of the language of
rupture. Many modernists and avant-gardists adopted a destructive attitude to tradition
and even to the present. The question arises, what alternative did modernists and avant-
gardists offer? Did they properly envisage utopian alternatives, or did all speculation end
in mere nihilism? The 2014 EAM conference, in order to commemorate the centenary of
the break-out of the First World War as the end of many utopian dreams in European
literature, arts, and politics, invites proposals for contributions that deal with utopianism
and dystopianism in modernism and avant-gardism, whether as utopia, chimera, or
dream; abstraction, mythopoeia, or dystopia. We welcome contributions across all areas
of avant-gardism, neo-avant-gardism, and modernism: art, literature, music,
architecture, film, artistic and social movements, lifestyle, television, fashion, drama,
performance, activism, design and technology.
Check the EAM website for updates: www.eam-europe.be .