Günter Berghaus

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies

Mission Statement

General Editor: Günter Berghaus

Editorial Board: Matteo D’Ambrosio, Marjorie Perloff, Jorge Schwartz, Irina Subotić

Contributing Editors: Emilia David, Matteo Fochessati, Rubén Gallo, Roger Griffin, Benedikt Hjartarson, Chris Michaelides, Przemysław Strożek, Pierantonio Zanotti

Editorial Assistants: Mariana Aguirre, Selena Daly, Sze Wah Lee, Renée M. Silverman

Aims and Scope

• First medium of communication for the global community of Futurism scholars

• International and interdisciplinary approach

• Contains essays, country surveys, reports, reviews and an annual bibliography

The Futurist art movement, founded by F.T. Marinetti in 1909, had a worldwide impact and made important contributions to avant-garde movements in many countries and artistic genres. This yearbook is designed to act as a medium of communication amongst a global community of Futurism scholars. It has an interdisciplinary orientation and presents new research on Futurism across national borders in fields such as literature, fine arts, music, theatre, design, etc.

Vol. 1 (2011): Special Issue, Futurism in Eastern and Central Europe

Vol. 2 (2012): Open Issue

Vol. 3 (2013): Special Issue, Iberian Futurism

Vol. 4 (2014): Open Issue

Vol. 5 (2015): Special Issue, Women Futurists

Vol. 6 (2016): Open Issue

Vol. 7 (2017): Special Issue, Futurism in Latin America

Vol. 8 (2018): Open Issue

The last twenty years has seen some major advances in the field of Futurism Studies. What in the first decades after WW II was frowned upon and regarded with political suspicion, has subsequently made a remarkable development, both in academia and on the art/publication market. Futurism has now come to be regarded as Italy’s most important contribution to modern art and is considered to have left a lasting mark on Italian literature. Consequently, in the 1980s and 90s, a pool of more than 500 artists and writers has been rediscovered, presented to the public by means of exhibitions and publications, and dozens of them promoted to an elevated status in the national pantheon. Every history of art and literature of the past twenty years has accorded Futurism a prominent position in the cultural history of the country.

Outside Italy, the development has been similar. Following a small trickle of publications in the years 1945 and 1970, a long series of international exhibitions raised Futurism to a status on a par with Expressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism. Consequently, it entered the syllabus in academic institutions and became a standard topic, not only in courses of fine art, design and architecture, but also Italian Studies, Hispanic Studies, Slavonic Studies, Cultural Studies, Theatre History, Music History etc.

This development found a peak in the 2009 centenary of the foundation of Futurism. Over 300 exhibitions, 50 international conferences and innumerable theatre and musical performances, radio and TV broadcasts gave Futurism an unprecedented prominence in the cultural calendar. Futurism Studies as an academic discipline is now firmly established and produces some 100-150 monographs annually (more than half of them outside Italy), tendency still rising. Many of these studies are focussed on Italy. However, Futurism had also a world-wide impact and generated many international Futurisms. It made important contributions to numerous avant-garde movements, despite the fact that their agendas only partially overlapped with Marinetti’s aesthetic and political programme.

Futurism was never a coherent style but an interdisciplinary laboratory. It had “elective affinities” with Symbolism, Cubism, Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, etc. The groups and individuals outside Italy who declared themselves to be “Futurists” were anything but satellites of Marinetti’s movement. They borrowed from the Italians what fitted into their local agendas and, more often than not, were equally inspired by other avant-garde schools.

Therefore, when analysing and assessing Futurist ‘influences’, one needs to consider the manner in which Futurist ideas were conveyed from one culture to another. Many of these routes would sometimes better be called absorption, assimilation, adaptation, osmosis, or similar. There was a fluidity of adaptations and creative modifications, leading to original aesthetics and highly individual, para-Futurist solutions.

It is the aim of the International Yearbook of Futurism Studies to publish original research on the global ramifications of Futurism, on the intercultural flow of avant-garde ideas across national borders, on artistic movements inspired by Futurism across continents, and on artists operating in the international sphere with close contacts to Marinetti or other Futurists. It is particularly interested in heterodox forms of Futurism and in artists who were only periodically involved with Futurism or were inspired only by certain aspects of the Italian movement. The Yearbook has a truly comparative perspective and facilitates contacts across academia such as literature, fine arts, music, theatre, dance, architecture, decorative arts, graphic design, fashion etc.

The International Yearbook of Futurism Studies seeks to provide a counterbalance to the Italian bias in Futurism Studies. It therefore does not publish essays that focus exclusively on Italian Futurism, but only those concerned with the relations between Italian Futurism and other Futurisms worldwide, or on artistic movements inspired by Futurism, or on artists operating in the international sphere with close contacts to Italian, Russian or other Futurists.

Each issue contains an average of 15 essays, 3-5 reviews of books and exhibitions, archive reports, country surveys, a visual section on Futurism in the contemporary press. Each volume has a 30-50 page annual bibliography of recent exhibition catalogues, monographs, special issues of periodicals, academic theses, sound and film recordings. Contents are made accessible by way of name, subject and geographical indexes and regularly published accumulative indexes.

For more information contact Günter Berghaus at g.berghaus@bristol.ac.uk, or visit the website guenter-berghaus.com or http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/futur.