Chimeras of Form: Modernist Internationalism Beyond Europe, 1914–2016 (Modernist Latitudes)

In Chimeras of Form, Aarthi Vadde vividly illustrates how modernist and contemporary writers reimagine the nation and internationalism in a period defined by globalization. She explains how Rabindranath Tagore, James Joyce, Claude McKay, George Lamming, Michael Ondaatje, and Zadie Smith use modernist literary forms to develop ideas of international belonging sensitive to the afterlife of empire. In doing so, she shows how this wide-ranging group of authors challenged traditional expectations of aesthetic form, shaping how their readers understand the cohesion and interrelation of political communities. Drawing on her close readings of individual texts and on literary, postcolonial, and cosmopolitical theory, Vadde examines how modernist formal experiments take part in debates about transnational interdependence and social obligation. She reads Joyce's use of asymmetrical narratives as a way to ask questions about international camaraderie, and demonstrates how the "plotless" works of Claude McKay upturn ideas of citizenship and diasporic alienation. Her analysis of the contemporary writers Zadie Smith and Shailja Patel shows how present-day issues relating to migration, displacement, and economic inequality link modernist and postcolonial traditions of literature. Vadde brings these traditions together to reveal the dual nature of internationalism as an aspiration, possibly a chimeric one, and an actual political discourse vital to understanding our present moment. In the years following World War I, the "international" emerged as a distinct scale of political and cultural focus. Internationalisms proliferated in kind as writers and thinkers sought to imagine modes of cooperation that would balance transnational solidarities with national sovereignty. While so-called political realists across the twentieth century have regarded such attempts as wishful thinking, Aarthi Vadde argues that the negotiation of wishing and thinking is at the very heart of internationalism. In Chimeras of Form , she shows why modernist literary form is essential to understanding the aspirational and analytical force of internationalism in and beyond Europe. Major writers such as Rabindranath Tagore, James Joyce, Claude McKay, George Lamming, Michael Ondaatje, and Zadie Smith use modernist strategies to reshape how readers think about the cohesion and interrelation of political communities in the wake of empire. Vadde lucidly explains how their formal experiments with the novel, short story, poetry, and political essay contribute to and sometimes even anticipate debates in postcolonial theory and cosmopolitanism. She reads Joyce's use of asymmetrical narratives as a way to ask questions about international camaraderie, and demonstrates how the "plotless" works of McKay and Lamming upturn ideas of citizenship and diasporic alienation. Her analysis of twenty-first-century writers Smith and Shailja Patel shows how ongoing conflicts around migration, displacement, and global economic inequality link modernist, postcolonial, and contemporary traditions of literature. Vadde brings these traditions together to reveal the dual nature of internationalism as an ambition, possibly a chimeric one, and an actual political discourse vital to understanding our present moment. In Chimeras of Form, Aarthi Vadde rethinks the classic concept of modernist internationalism in and beyond Europe. She explains how a wide-ranging group of writers used modernist literary forms to shape ideas of international belonging in the wake of imperialism. Rabindranath Tagore, James Joyce, Claude McKay, George Lamming, Michael Ondaatje, and Zadie Smith questioned traditional expectations of aesthetic form and, in doing so, cast doubt on parallel notions of the cohesion and wholeness of political communities. Drawing on her close readings of individual texts and on literary, postcolonial, and cosmopolitical theory, Vadde shows how these writers' formal experiments took part in debates about transnational interdependence and social obligation. She reads Joyce's use of asymmetrical narratives as a way to ask questions about international camaraderie and demonstrates how the "plotless" works of Claude McKay upturn ideas of citizenship and diasporic alienation. Her analysis of the contemporary writers Zadie Smith and Shailja Patel shows how present-day questions relating to migration, displacement, and economic inequality link modernism and postcolonial literature. Vadde illustrates how writers have reimagined the nation and internationalism in a period defined by globalization, revealing the dual nature of internationalism as an aspiration, possibly a chimeric one, and an actual political discourse Aarthi Vadde shows why modernist literary form is essential to understanding the aspirational and analytical force of internationalism in and beyond Europe. She explains how major writers use modernist strategies to reshape how readers think about the cohesion and interrelation of political communities in the wake of empire. Aarthi Vadde is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of English at Duke University. LIT006000,Literary Criticism/Semiotics & Theory,LIT004120,Literary Criticism/European/English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh