Quart. The Quarterly of the Institute of Art History at the University of Wrocław
Call for papers for the 66th issue of “Quart”

The roaring 1920s and dark 1930s

Printing of the issue: December 2022
Guest editor: Dr. hab. Przemysław Strożek, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IS PAN)

The end of the First World War brought radical geopolitical changes on the global map: the formation of the independent countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the establishment of the Soviet Union with the inclusion of Soviet Central Asia, the proclamation of the Italian Fascist Empire in Africa and Nazi annexation of Austria and Sudetenland, both events that lead to the Second World War. In the context of cultural transformations: ‘the roaring twenties’ and utopian avant-garde visions faded into dystopian ‘dark thirties’, when a disagreement with authoritarian rules led to purges among artistic scenes and many artists were forced to flee to exile.

The special number of Quart focuses on the cultural and socio-political transformations of the 1920s and 1930s. Bringing into account interdisciplinary approaches of modernist studies the aim of the special number is to explore the histories and legacies of social, political and aesthetic questions raised by the interwar artistic activities:

- What are the methods to study artistic production in the 1920s-1930s from contemporary perspectives?
- In which way developments of rail, aviation, mass media, coordinated mailing systems, and constitution of networking strategies had an impact on transnational artistic exchanges?
- To what extent did popular culture aspects, such as African American jazz, noise and gramophone music, the rise of Hollywood starship, the popularity of modern sports, and dancing-club entertainment dismissed traditional notions of art?
- What are the examples of artists’ engagement in the global workers’ culture?
- How can we decentre the artistic production in the 1920s and 1930s?
- How artists reacted to transnational Communism and transnational Fascism?
- In which way did the art of indigenous cultures affected modern art and what was the impact of modern art in Africa, Latin America and Asia?
- In which way did artists engage with protest movements, including the Suffragette Movement and liberation movements around the globe?
- What were the artistic responses to refugee crisises and global armed conflicts?

As editors of this special number of Quart on The roaring 1920s and dark 1930s, we are awaiting innovative texts, which tackle the issues outlined above. The need to look upon the 1920s and 1930s from today’s perspective is very important, as we are aware of many similarities between the ‘roaring twenties/dark thirties’ and the last decades, which started in the 1990s with explosions of freedom and hope but faded into dystopian and horrifying wars in Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.

Papers (from 20,000 to 40,000 characters in English, with up to 10 illustrations) should be submitted in format specified in the guidelines (to be downloaded from the website: https://quart.uni.wroc.pl/guidelines-for-the-authors) to the address: quartuwr.edu.pl.

Deadline for submission of papers: September 15, 2022

The editors reserve the right to select given papers. All the submitted papers will be subject to a double-blind review, in line with COPE guidelines.

“Quart” is a regularly published quarterly journal by the Institute of Art History of the University of Wroclaw. It is indexed in ERIH+, CEJSH and BazHum databases. It was awarded a grant under the “Support for 500 Scientific Journals” Programme of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. It is included in the list of scientific journals of the Ministry of Education and Science as of 1.12.2022 with 70 points.

The current number can be purchased in EMPiK chain stores. Archival issues are available in libraries and in a digitalized form in Polona website: https://polona.pl/search/?query=quart.