Zur Selbstpositionierung der Surrealisten um 1924

Anarchistinnen, Mörderinnen und Kulturakteurinnen als Vor- und Feindbilder

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15460/apropos.13.2232

Keywords:

avant-garde, surrealism, gender, women writers, anarchism

Abstract

What would the literary history of Surrealism – and the historical avant-gardes as a whole – look like if it were consistently written from a gender perspective? Prompted by this question, these reflections focus on Surrealism between 1924 and 1925, when Breton asserted his version of the term Surrealism against those of competing actors and positioned it within the cultural field of his time through the publication of the first Manifeste du surréalisme (1924).

Previous research on the self-positioning of Surrealism in its founding years has tended to marginalize or reduce to mere anecdote the function of ‚female‘ role models and antagonists. By contrast, this study takes three politically and/or artisti-cally engaged women – the anarchist Germaine Berton as well as the authors Aurel and Rachilde – as examples to show how the initially indistinct movement took on the specific contours of Surrealism through the symbolical appropriation or delegitimization of the political and cultural achievements of women activists and artists.

Author Biography

Margot Brink, Europa-Universität Flensburg

Margot Brink is professor of French Literature and Cultural Studies in European Contexts at Europa-Universität Flensburg. Among other responsibilities, she heads the university’s trinational bachelor’s degree program Transcultural European Studies: Languages, Cultures, Interactions. Her research interests include Francophone literatures in postcolonial contexts; concepts of community; avant-gardes; emotional discourses; gender studies; and European narratives. Recent publications: Transnationale und interkulturelle Literaturwissenschaft und Literaturdidaktik. Konzeptionelle und digitale Transformationen (2024, ed. with Jörn Bockmann et al.); Literaturen und Literaturtransfer im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Plurilinguale und interdisziplinäre Perspektiven (2023, ed. with  Matteo Anastasio et al.); “Gabrielle Suchon (1632-1703): Philosophie weiblicher Freiheit zwischen Tradition und Moderne” in: M. Hertrampf (ed.), Femmes de lettres […], 2020, 85-109.

Germaine Berton, mug shot 1923, wikimedia commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Germaine_Berton.jpg)

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Published

2024-12-04

How to Cite

[1]
Brink, M. 2024. Zur Selbstpositionierung der Surrealisten um 1924: Anarchistinnen, Mörderinnen und Kulturakteurinnen als Vor- und Feindbilder. apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania]. 13 (Dec. 2024), 23–45. DOI:https://doi.org/10.15460/apropos.13.2232.

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Miscellaneous section

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