American Culture Between the Wars: Revisionary Modernism and Postmodern Critique

This study examines the feminist, African-American and populist avant-garde that flourished in the era of American modernism. Arguing that American modernism runs much deeper than the seminal contributions of Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Kalaidjian revisits the "historical avant-garde" showcased in magazines of the period. This revisionary study discusses public art in the Depression era, proletarian subculture, and the social poetics of Kenneth Fearing, Muriel Rukeyser and Langston Hughes. Kalaidjian establishes a continuity between interwar modernist movements and the contemporary work of Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Sue Coe, Hans Haacke and others.