Guided by the historical semantics developed in RaymondWilliams' pioneering study of cultural vocabulary, Modernism:Keywords presents a series of short entries on words used withfrequency and urgency in "written modernism," trackingcultural and literary debates and transformative moments ofchange.
* Highlights and exposes the salient controversies and changingcultural thought at the heart of modernism
* Goes beyond constructions of "plural modernisms" toreveal all modernist writing as overlapping and interactive in asimultaneous and interlocking mix
* Draws from a vast compilation of more than a thousand sources,ranging from vernacular prose to experimental literary forms
* Spans the "long" modernist period, from itsincipient beginnings c.1880 to its post-WWII aftermath
* Approaches English written modernism in its own terms,tempering explanations of modernism often derived from Europeanpoets and painters
* Models research techniques based on digital databases andcollaborative work in the humanities