The term avant-garde continues to generate controversy. “Previous avant-garde theorists,” Seita writes—and I am included on her list—“have tended to consider avant-gardes as monolithic, homogeneous, and historical entities outside their material and social contexts. They have either tended to repeat the self-theorizations of avant-garde writers or have based their interpretations on a very selective range of documents and objects.” In response, Seita's own study promises to “fill [the] gap by offering an extensive diachronic study of avant-garde print communities beyond modernism.” The “communities” in question, based on an examination of American “little” magazines, include “New York Proto-Dada,” “Proto-Conceptualisms,” “Proto-Language and New Narrative,” “Feminist Avant-gardes” and “Communities of Print in the Digital Age.” The repeated “Proto” is meant to signal Seita's view that more attention should be paid to those on the fringes of avant-garde communities, since the central figures have been discussed again and again.
It is too bad...
