"What is past, or passing, or to come": Transnational Modernism, Self-Transcendence, and the Rise of Ultranationalism (1884-1945)

Webb-Destefano, Kathryn, English - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia
Levenson, Michael, University of Virginia
“‘What is past, or passing, or to come’: Transnational Modernism, Self-Transcendence, and the Rise of Ultranationalism (1884-1945)” concerns the ways in which Lafcadio Hearn, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce engaged with Irish folklore, global mythologies, and the rise of ultranationalism during the early twentieth century. This study offers an exploration of modernist literature that emerged out of Ireland, but which was shaped by a wide array of global influences. In the hands of my three authors, these influences informed imaginative literary and philosophical spaces which transcended the global, creating portals of transnational expression. The rupture of modernity and the ways in which this rupture enacted new ways of thinking about the self and the nation are fundamental to this study. As such, I posit transnationality as a form of self-transcendence. The self-transcendent mindset seeks to transcend boundaries of self and other. Thus, transnational modernism enacts a transcendence rather than an erasure of these boundaries.
PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)
Modernism , Transnational Modernism, Fascism, Self-transcendent Experience , James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Lafcadio Hearn
English
2024/07/30