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Fascinating futurism: The historiographical politics of an historical avant-garde

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Walter L. Adamson
Walter L. Adamson*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
*
∗Email: wadamso@emory.edu
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Abstract

The Italian futurist movement and its founder, F.T. Marinetti, have stimulated a vast historiography. Why has futurism fascinated so many and how, in particular, have the futurism-fascism and Marinetti-futurism relationships been conceived? To answer such questions, this article surveys nearly five decades of scholarship on futurism. It shows how futurism's fascist trajectory has polarised it and led scholars to a wide variety of positions. Some scholars limit themselves to the ‘heroic years’ up to 1916; others focus on ‘second futurism’ after 1915 without much reference to Marinetti; and still others treat futurism's ‘multiplicity’ using a centre-periphery model with Marinetti at the centre. Similarly, some insist on futurism's continuously ‘revolutionary’ character, others limit that claim, and still others deny it altogether. It is argued that recent biographical work on Marinetti has helped to clarify how one ought to approach and resolve these differences, but that scholarship on futurism nonetheless remains intensely politicised.

Keywords

FuturismFascismAvant-gardeMarinetti
Type
Contexts & Debates
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 69 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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