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This collection of essays, inspired by André Breton's concept of the limites non-frontières of Surrealism, focuses on the crossings, intersections and margins of the surrealist movement rather than its divides and exclusion zones. Some of the essays originated as papers given at the colloquium 'Surrealism: Crossings/Frontiers' held at the Institute of Romance Studies, University of London, in November 2001.
Surrealism is foregrounded as a trajectory rather than a fixed body of doctrines, radically challenging the notion of frontiers. The essays explore real and imaginary journeys, as well as the urban dérives of the surrealists and situationists. The concept of crossing, central to a reading of the dynamics at work in Surrealism, is explored in studies of the surrealist object, which eludes or elides genres, and explorations of the shifting sites of identity, as in the work of Joyce Mansour or André Masson. Surrealism's engagement with frontiers is further investigated through a number of revealing cases, such as a political reading of 1930s photography, the parodic rewriting of the popular 'locked room' mystery, or the surrealists' cavalier redrawing of the map of the world. The essays contribute to our understanding of the diversity and dynamism of Surrealism as an international and interdisciplinary movement.
List of contents
Contents: Elza Adamowicz: Introduction - Roger Cardinal: Breton's travels - David Pinder: Urban encounters: dérives from Surrealism - Marie-Claire Barnet: L'Amour flou: Joyce Mansour on (fe)male desires - David Lomas: Vertigo: on some motifs in Masson, Bataille and Caillois - Johanna Malt: Recycling, contamination and compulsion: practices of the objet surréaliste - Jonathan Eburne: Locked room, bloody chamber - Jacqueline Rattray: Crossing the French-Spanish border with José Maria Hinojosa - Michel Remy: British surrealist painting and writing: re-marking the margin - David Bate: The space of the other - Elza Adamowicz: Off the map: Surrealism's uncharted territories.
About the author
The Editor: Elza Adamowicz is Professor of French at Queen Mary, University of London. She has written extensively on surrealist art, film and texts, including Surrealist Collage: Dissecting the Exquisite Corpse (1998) and Ceci n¿est pas un tableau: les écrits surréalistes sur l¿art (2004).
