French Literature Reviews - 2026
Wolfgang Asholt, The Long Life of the Avant-Garde
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
An interview with the author can be read on Acta Fabula (February 2026, vol. 27, no. 2) as part of the critical feature Surrealism(s): Show Yourselves! Surrealist Revolutions, Moles, and Global Interdependencies. Interview with Wolfgang Asholt, by Andrea Gremels, Sophie Corazolla, and Julia Jendrossek
Historical constellations and current developments in avant-garde theories – from Dada to contemporary art activism.
Dadaism, Surrealism, Constructivism – even after more than a century, the avant-gardes remain ubiquitous. But what significance do they hold for art and literature today?
Tracing a trajectory from the historical avant-gardes and their 20th-century "-isms," through the neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s, to the second avant-garde and contemporary art activism, Romance scholar Wolfgang Asholt demonstrates how the avant-gardes and their theories evolve, influence each other, define their boundaries, and challenge art and literature. To this end, he examines how they relate to Cornelius Castoriadis’s concept of the "radical imaginary": How do the avant-gardes transform our society? Can life become art, and art life? And what can present-day artistic activism learn from avant-garde theories?
Wolfgang Asholt’s study picks up where Peter Bürger’s Theory of the Avant-Garde proclaimed its failure and Paul Mann announced its theoretical death, demonstrating that the avant-gardes are still very much alive.
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Wolfgang Asholt, born in 1944, was an honorary professor at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at HU Berlin from 2013 to 2023, having previously served as Professor of Romance Literary Studies in Potsdam and Osnabrück. He (co-)edited the Frankreich Jahrbuch (1995–2005) and Lendemains (2000–2012) and serves on the advisory boards of the Revue des Sciences humaines and the Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, among others. Since 2014, he has been a member of the Board of Cerisy, the conference center where the Nouveau Roman and French Theory were "invented."
Publications include: Alexander Kluge. Cartographie d’une œuvre plurielle (co-edited with Jean-Pierre Morel and Vincent Pauval) (2022); Avantgarde und Modernismus. Dezentrierung, Subversion und Transformation im literarisch-künstlerischen Feld (2014); Französische Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts (2006).
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The trajectory of twentieth-century cultural movements has long occupied scholars of modern literature and aesthetics, particularly regarding how radical artistic practices reinvent themselves across decades. Discussions surrounding the historical avant-gardes often engage with theoretical frameworks that question the boundaries separating institutionalized art from everyday existence. Within Romance studies and cultural history, the legacy of groups associated with Dadaism and Surrealism continues to prompt critical reassessment, as researchers examine the ongoing dialogue between historical manifestos and contemporary cultural expression. Readers interested in the evolution of modern aesthetic theory may find this volume relevant.
Wolfgang Asholt examines how artistic movements adapt and persist across successive generations, engaging with established scholarly debates concerning the perceived decline or continuity of radical art. By tracing developments from early twentieth-century experiments through neo-avant-garde practices to contemporary activism, the study addresses theoretical questions regarding social transformation and cultural critique. The work considers how artistic strategies relate to broader intellectual concepts such as the radical imaginary, positioning these developments within the wider context of modern European literary and artistic history without presupposing a single trajectory of decline.