A Companion to Dada and Surrealism

Dada and Surrealism are two of the most influential, provocative and intellectually demanding areas of twentieth century art. A Companion to Dada and Surrealism provides an excellent overview of new research in the area from some of the finest established and up–and–coming scholars in the field. Blending expert synthesis of the latest scholarship with previously unpublished research findings, the book offers detailed historical coverage as well as in–depth and innovative discussion of thematic areas such as childhood, natural history, counter–culture, criminality, sexuality and gender. 

One of the first studies to produce global coverage of the two movements together, this unique overview addresses the themes that unite them, but also looks at them as discrete, albeit partially overlapping entities. The Companion is divided into three sections: the first offers a complete historical account of the movements, in an expanded global context. The second provides a series of essays on key themes shared, to a greater or lesser extent, by the movements. The final section deals with the critical and cultural aftermath of Dada and Surrealism in the later twentieth century. Re–defining the research field, this text provides an invaluable companion for both scholars and students.

Notes on Contributors

Editor s Introduction: David Hopkins

Section 1: Histories/Geographies

Dada s Genesis: Zurich
Debbie Lewer

Neue Jugend :  A Case Study in Berlin Dada
Sherwin Simmons

Dada Migrations: Definition, Dispersal and the case of Kurt Schwitters
Michael White

New York Dada: From End to Beginning

David Hopkins

Nothing, Ventured: Paris Dada into Surrealism
Elizabeth Legge

Surrealism and the Question of Politics 1925–1939

Raymond Spiteri

Other Surrealisms: Centre and Periphery in International Perspective

Michael Richardson

Dada and Surrealism in Japan
Majella Munro

Dada and Surrealism in Central and Eastern Europe
Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Surrealism in Latin America

Dawn Ades

Section 2: Themes and Interpretations

Dissemination: The Dada and Surrealist journals
Emily Hage

Artists into Curators: Dada and Surrealist Exhibition Practices
Adam Jolles

Dada and Surrealist Poetics
Eric Robertson

Chance and Automatism: Genealogies of the Dissociative in Dada and Surrealism
Abigail Susik

Crime/Insurrection

Jonathan Eburne

Re–Enchantment: Surrealist Discourses of Childhood, Hermeticism and the Outmoded
David Hopkins

Surrealism and Natural History: Nature and the Marvellous in Breton and Caillois
Donna Roberts

The Surrealist Collection: Ghosts in the Laboratory
Katharine Conley

The Ethnographic Turn
Julia Kelly

Desire Bound: Violence, Body, Machine
Neil Cox

Equivocal Gender: Dada/Surrealism and Sexual Politics between the Wars
Tirza True Latimer

Feminist Interventions: Revising the Canon
Patricia Allmer

Section 3: Continuations/Aftermathsf

The Surrealist Movement since the 1930s
Steven Harris

Dada, Surrealism and their Heritage The North American reception of Dada and Surrealism
James Boaden

Surrealism and Counterculture
Elliott King

Assimilation: Objects; Commodities; Fashion
Ulrich Lehmann

Sightings: Surrealist Idiolect, Gothic Marxism, Global Perils
Angela Dimitrakaki

Index

 

David Hopkins is Professor of Art History at the University of Glasgow. An acknowledged expert on Dada and Surrealism, he has published widely on these movements, and on artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst. His books include Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: The Bride Shared (1998) and Dada s Boys: Masculinity After Duchamp (2007). He is also author of the bestselling short guide to the subject, Dada and Surrealism: A Short Introduction (2004).