'Back to the Futurists' conference - registration now open

2-4 July 2009, Queen Mary University of London

Organised by:

School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London

French Department, Royal Holloway University of London

School of Arts, Swansea University

in collaboration with

The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

2009 marks the centenary of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, published on 20 February 1909 in the Paris daily Le Figaro. Back to the Futurists: Avant-Gardes 1909-2009 is an international conference called with the aim of reassessing the contribution of Futurism to Modernism and tracking its enduring legacy in cultural movements around the world.

Details of the conference programme and how to register can be found here.

Origins of the group

Coordinators: John Goodby, Andrew Rothwell
The Modernisms Group first coalesced in 2005 as an initiative between the (then) departments of English (Dr John Goodby) and French (Professor Andrew Rothwell), together with colleagues in London at Queen Mary (Professor Elza Adamowicz) and Royal Holloway (Professor Eric Robertson). The initial aim was to organise an international conference on the European Dada movement; ‘Eggs Laid by Tigers’ (Dylan Thomas) was held successfully at Swansea in July 2006 and two volumes of proceedings are now forthcoming with Rodopi.

When the group subsequently set out to broaden its interdisciplinary scope it received enthusiastic responses from around the campus, from academics and research students not only in Modern Languages and English but also American Studies, Sociology, Health Sciences, and Computer Science (list of core members).

Semester 2 of 2007-8 has seen the establishment of a Modernisms speaker programme, inaugurated in February by a leading international authority on Modernist writing, Professor Peter Nicholls (University of Sussex), with a paper on Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. Group members are involved in co-organising a follow-up to the Dada conference to mark the centenary of Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, to be held at Queen Mary in July 2009. Discussions are underway on the possibility of founding a regional Modernisms research network.

Members of the group are responsible for devising and delivering the interdisciplinary MA in Modernisms offered by the School of Arts. Applications are also welcomed for PhD research in any area of modernist endeavour covered by the group.