Charles Henri Ford: Between Modernism and Postmodernism

Alexander Howard is Lecturer in Writing Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia.

• Introduction: Water from a Bucket or, the the Hidden Modernist Histories of Charles Henri FordChapter 1: Blues and the Belated Renovation of ModernismChapter 2: Community, Circularity, Sociability, PostcardsChapter 3: Building Up and Breaking Down: Surrealism, New York, New CriticismChapter 4: Spare Parts, or, Caught Between Pop and a Historical Hard PlaceChapter 5: Multitudes, Mirrors, Crystals, Haiku, HomeConclusion: 'I Will Be What I Am' or, the Camp Modernist Legacy of Charles Henri FordBibliographyIndex

Alexander Howard’s pathbreaking study of the life and work of the sadly neglected Charles Henri Ford is much more than a simple recuperation of lost value. It dextrously navigates the categorial coral reefs growing up over the wrecks of modernism and postmodernism both, and establishes some eye-opening passages between and among them, where the reef-fish teem and school. Howard’s Ford is a multiform experimentalist, queer icon, regional surrealist, late-modernist mentor, and sociable internationalist, who tirelessly offered his ‘torsional’ character to those movements and causes that could use his energy. His longevity turns out to be a key to the broken clocks of modernity, with which he tinkered and played in an amazing series of works to which we now have the most reliable guide.