Accessibility statement

Period Band C

Futurism

Tutor: Michael White
Concepts of progress, be they technological, scientific or cultural, are central to modernism’s rhetoric and nowhere made more explicit than in the manifestos of the Futurist movements of the early twentieth century. This intermediate module will use Futurism as a lens through which to examine features of modernism’s relationship to aspects of modernity such as urbanisation, industrialisation, speed, mass culture and world war ranging across the diverse array of Futurist production from art to poetry, architecture and music. The module will adopt a critical standpoint which will examine how claims for progressiveness were often tempered with chauvinism, nationalism and imperialist ambition. While focused principally on Italian Futurism, the module will also consider related groups of artists in other locations such as Russia and Britain, and may also consider the recuperation of Futurist imagery in unlikely contexts such as the more recent phenomenon of Afrofuturism.