Table of Contents

1. Futurisms: An Introduction—Geert Buelens and Monica Jansen
2. The Audacity of Hope: The Foundational Futurist Manifestos—Marjorie Perloff
Part I. Precursors
3. The Anthology Poeti futuristi: Poetry of Transition—Davide Podavini
4. Marinetti in France between Symbolism and Futurism: Vers et prose and Les guêpes—Eleonora Conti
5. Futurist Roots in Palermo: Federico De Maria between Anticlassicism and Anti-Marinettism—Laura Greco
6. The Statistical Sublime—Jeffrey T. Schnapp
7. Mapping Futurism. Performance in Rome and Across Italy, 1909-1915, with a Coda on Interwar Calabria—Patricia Gaborik
Part II. Protagonists
8. Time and Space in the Writings of Marinetti, Palazzeschi, the Group of L’Italia futurista, and Other Futurist Writers—Beatrice Sica
9. The Great War in the Words-in-Freedom Style of an Atypical Futurist: Conflagrazione by Paolo Buzzi—Monica Biasiolo
10. How to Become a Women of the Future: Una donna con tre anime—Un ventre di donna—Silvia Contarini
11. Love, Politics, and an Explosive Future: Volt’s La fine del mondo—Kyle Hall
12. Auto-commentary in Ardengo Soffici’s BIF$ZF+18. Simultaneità e chimismi lirici—Dirk Vanden Berghe
13. Luciano Folgore’s Self-parody: End or Renewal of Futurism?—Stefano Magni
14. Fortunato Depero’s Radiophonic Lyrics—Francesca Bravi
15. A Vitalist Art: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s sintesi radiofoniche—Federico Luisetti
Part III. Legacies
16. The End of an Avant-Garde? Marinetti and Futurism in World War I and its Aftermath—Walter L. Adamson
17. Futurism and the Politics of the Ugly: Theory, History and Actuality—Sascha Bru
18. Futurism and the Manifesto in the 1960s—Florian Mussgnug
19. No Man’s Land : From Free-word Tables to Verbal-visual Poetry—Teresa Spignoli
20. The Postwar Reception of Futurism: Repression or Recuperation?—Günter Berghaus
About the Contributors
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Geert Buelens is professor of modern Dutch literature at the University of Utrecht and guest professor at the University of Stellenbosch.

Harald Hendrix is professor of Italian studies and head of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Utrecht.

Monica Jansen is lecturer in Italian studies at the University of Utrecht and editor-in-chief of Incontri: Rivista europea di studi italiani.
 

Reviews

Among the many publications that have emerged for the centenary of Futurism, this stands out for breadth and originality, with an excellent mix of specific case studies and more general theoretical and historical discussions. The presence of some of the most important international scholars on the subject give extra weight and authority of this compelling collection.
*Pierpaolo Antonello, Head of Italian Department, University of Cambridge*

Bringing together leading scholars of Futurism from Europe and North America, The History of Futurism: Precursors, Protagonists, and Legacies aims at sketching a new and alternative map of the Italian movement, in which its debts and influences are properly acknowledged and in which supposedly minor figures such as Paolo Buzzi, Volt, or Rosa Rosà are given their rightful place next to F. T. Marinetti in shaping its aesthetics. There are many strengths that make this volume stand out in the increasingly crowded field of Futurist studies. The greatest is perhaps that, by tracing Futurism's roots in late-nineteenth-century poetics such as symbolism as well as its enduring legacy in the second half of the twentieth century, this book reminds us that Futurism was more than one of the many movements of the historical avant-garde: rather, it was one of the shaping forces of literary modernity.
*Luca Somigli, University of Toronto*

Was Futurism a dead end of modernism, or has it been an enduring inspiration? Was its ending already fated in its beginning, its adoption of late symbolist and decadent motifs? Or has it left a lasting legacy that continues to reverberate in the arts of today? This volume explores all those questions with probing insight and lively debate. Anyone interested in the arts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will treasure this collection of essays.
*Lawrence Rainey, University of York*