Unfortunately, we are never far from wars, and the essays and images in Modernism/modernity have been reflecting on that repeatedly in the past few issues and on Print Plus.
The cover of the January issue again features a war image, not obviously from any of the current ones. The abandonment of ethics during such embattled times is at the center of Kipling’s story and perhaps is the dominant story of our times.
This issue is out in print a while ago and some readers are already enjoying the varied contents. The table of contents of the issue is attached here as a reminder of the range of topics presented here: two essays on Nella Larsen (one on the political impasse of progressive art as revealed in Nella Larsen’s work, and the other on the queer potential underlying the conventional narrative forms in her work); the Indian journal, Marg, and its institution of a new national aesthetic; the disorientation of sexualities in wartime in Rudyard Kipling and James Hanley; modernity and inter-war detective fiction; the antiquary in Hope Mirrlees, Virginia Woolf, and Manuel Mujica Láinez; re-forming woman in Malayalam periodicals; and the radiogenic aesthetics in Elizabeth Bowen, Louis MacNeice and Samuel Beckett. In the book reviews, we have a review essay by Liam Kruger and seven other reviews of books on various global modernisms and on intermedialities, among other things.
The teaser article (by Rashmi Viswanathan) and the book review (by Martin Harries) will be available here in the next two weeks, do look out for them.
It’s been a very productive time on Print Plus too: in the brief space between the two print issues, we have published two fantastic clusters: the first one on Hope Mirrlees's Paris: A Poem and the second on Global Modernisms and Asia's Other Empires. They are both packed with scholarly insights and new perspectives and I hope you spend some time browsing through these rich writings. There is also the blog by Daniel Horowitz on the curious and fascinating connection between modernism and the crossword puzzle (and the war!).
This is also the first issue after the transition of co-editors and I want to thank Stephen Ross for the work he has done for the journal—it was a privilege and joy to work with him the last two years! The journal now has a new co-editor, along with me: Faye Hammill, from University of Glasgow, whose new vision will enrich these spaces in the coming months and years. Another crucial change has been in the roles of our managing editors at the Rutgers desk: Paisley Conrad is our new ME for print issues and Rudrani Gangopadhyay, our new ME for Print Plus at the Rutgers desk. A huge welcome to all!
—Anjali Nerlekar