The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics

As one of the founding poets and editors of the Language School of poetry and one of its central theorists, Barrett Watten has consistently challenged the boundaries of literature and art. In The Constructivist Moment, he offers a series of theoretically informed and textually sensitive readings that advance a revisionist account of the avant-garde through the methodologies of cultural studies. His major topics include American modernist and postmodern poetics, Soviet constructivist and post-Soviet literature and art, Fordism and Detroit techno--each proposed as exemplary of the social construction of aesthetic and cultural forms. His book is a full-scale attempt to place the linguistic turn of critical theory and the self-reflexive foregrounding of language by the avant-garde since the Russian Formalists in relation to the cultural politics of postcolonial studies, feminism, and race theory. As such, it will provide a crucial revisionist perspective within modernist and avant-garde studies.

Literature & Fiction

Watten, Barrett

History & Criticism

Wesleyan University Press

Winner of the American Comparative Literature Association's Rene Wellek Prize (2004) As one of the founding poets and editors of the Language School of poetry and one of its central theorists, Barrett Watten has consistently challenged the boundaries of literature and art. In The Constructivist Moment, he offers a series of theoretically informed and textually sensitive readings that advance a revisionist account of the avant-garde through the methodologies of cultural studies. His major topics include American modernist and postmodern poetics, Soviet constructivist and post-Soviet literature and art, Fordism and Detroit techno―each proposed as exemplary of the social construction of aesthetic and cultural forms. His book is a full-scale attempt to place the linguistic turn of critical theory and the self-reflexive foregrounding of language by the avant-garde since the Russian Formalists in relation to the cultural politics of postcolonial studies, feminism, and race theory. As such, it will provide a crucial revisionist perspective within modernist and avant-garde studies.

Decay

Contemporary

This Pr

One--Ten/Signed Edition

1985, trade paperback edition, Roof Books, NY, 120 pages. Poetry.

Progress

Poetry

Roof Books

This edition first published: 1995-05 Format/binding:Paperback Publisher: Small Pr Distribution

Aerial 8: Barrett Watten

Small Pr Distribution

Poetry. Cultural Writing. THE GRAND PIANO is an ongoing experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with Language poetry in San Francisco. It takes its name from a coffeehouse at 1607 Haight Street, where from 1976-79 the authors took part in a reading and performance series. The writing project, begun in 1998, was undertaken as an online collaboration, first via an interactive web site and later through a listserv. When completed, THE GRAND PIANO will comprise ten parts, in which each of the ten authors will appear in a different sequence. These poets are Bob Perelman, Barrett Watten, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Tom Mandel, Ron Silliman, Kit Robinson, Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, and Ted Pearson.

The Grand Piano: Part 1

Biographies & Memoirs

Armantrout, Rae

Hejinian, Lyn

Silliman, Ron

Others

Regional U.S.

Mode A/This Press

Cultural Writing. Poetry. Memoir. THE GRAND PIANO is an ongoing experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with Language poetry in San Francisco. It takes its name from a coffee house at 1607 Haight Street, where from 1976-79 the authors took part in a reading and performance series. The writing project was undertaken as an online collaboration, first via an interactive website and then through a listserv. THE GRAND PIANO began serial publication in November 2006. New volumes will appear at three-month intervals until the series of ten is complete. The authors of THE GRAND PIANO are Barrett Watten, Ted Pearson, Rae Armantrout, Steve Benson, Kit Robinson, Tom Mandel, Ron Silliman, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian and Bob Perelman.

The Grand Piano: Part 2

Arts & Literature

This Press

Cultural Writing. The fourth installment of the Grand Piano "experiment in collective autobiography" includes an extensive chronology of "Selected Readings, Talks, and Events Concurrent with the Grand Piano Series, 1976-80." In the rest of the book, the ten writers continue their reminiscences of that period, often in dialogue with other pieces. Ideas of "everyday life," Debord's understanding of "drift," utopia, and those specific talks, readings and events of Bay Area 1970s Language poetry are just some of the running motifs in this issue, interwoven with wider reflections on what this particular community of poets meant then or means now.

The Grand Piano: Part 4

Cultural Writing. Biography and Memoir. Number five in the ongoing series of collective autobiography, THE GRAND PIANO (PART FIVE) continues to mark the events, movements and intersections among ten contributing 1970's language poets. In this installment, threads and discussions include friendship, disagreement, homosexuality, Zukofsky, and who exactly wrote the line "Instead of ant wort, I saw brat guts." This book marks the half-way point of THE GRAND PIANO project, which will continue into ten volumes, though they are not individually isolated by prescribed themes.

The Grand Piano: Part 5

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Books by Watten, Barrett

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Watten, Barrett. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics

The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics

Decay

One--Ten/Signed Edition

Progress

Aerial 8: Barrett Watten

The Grand Piano: Part 1

The Grand Piano: Part 2

The Grand Piano: Part 4

The Grand Piano: Part 5