As the globalization of modernist studies continues to generate new axes of comparison and fresh perspectives on the multiple temporalities of literary modernity, transnational histories of global modernisms have drawn increasing attention. In response, projects such as NONWESTLIT have opened new directions for rethinking modernism through its global and multifaceted interconnections, moving beyond the canonical boundaries of the Global North. Building on this impetus, this seminar aims to foster dialogue on the intersections of modernist aesthetics across diverse non-Western literary and cultural traditions. 

Challenging the tendency to conceptualize non-Western modernisms as derivative, we seek to foreground the polycentric emergence of modernisms across Asia and other cultural spaces beyond the Global North, where writers, artists, critics, and translators engaged with modernism through innovation, translation, and adaptation, navigating rapid political, linguistic, and cultural transformations. 

The seminar intends to stimulate comparative approaches to modernisms and literary modernities across Asian and other non-Western cultural spaces (including, but not limited to, Turkish, Persian, Arab, Russian, East Asian, South and Southeast Asian, as well as African, and Latin American traditions) debating issues such as the role of intermediality and intertextuality in shaping modernist aesthetics, the circulation of material and intellectual networks (books, periodicals, visual and performative arts), and the philosophies of time and layered temporalities that define experiences of modernization.

We invite proposals that examine literary modernism from a global perspective, centering on Asia and other non-Western cultural spaces and challenging Eurocentric narratives across literature, visual art, architecture, music, and beyond.

For further inquiries, please contact Enver A. Akova ([email protected]) and Luo Jia ([email protected]).