The modernist movement is defined by a heightened awareness of the limitations and potentialities of language. From the cacophonies and multiple languages heard in The Waste Land and the phonetic transcription of foreign languages that reflects Miriam Henderson’s sensory experiences in Pilgrimage, to Stephen Dedalus’s critical musing on the English language in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, modernism is characterized by experimentalism and skepticism in its dealings with language. The representation of language, depictions of multilingual spaces, and critical reflection on dominant languages are defining elements of modernist literature and art. In this period of rapid, unprecedented internationalization, canonical and non-canonical works, including those far beyond Anglophone sphere, addressed language with delight, with urgency. Moreover, such tendencies are found not only in literature, but in forms of modernist art, including photography, radio, and cinema, which define new visual and auditory languages through which to reach across cultural boundaries.

This conference offers an opportunity to approach modernism and language from a wide range of global perspectives and disciplinary angles, with the aim of opening new discussions on the enduring legacies and significance of modernism.