Surrealism and Its Others

Book excerpt: This issue of Yale French Studies on "Surrealism and Its Others"examines the works and theories of writers, artists, and thinkers who positioned themselves and their productions in dialogue with Breton's surrealism. Although surrealism always sought to distinguish itself from other movements and ideologies, its members often celebrated their commonality with many "others" outside of the official group with whom they shared their passions: Marxists, visual artists, filmmakers, psychiatrists, and ethnographers. Each of the writers, artists, and thinkers examined here were either temporarily associated with surrealism or were influenced by its collective and open spirit, even if in a primarily opposing or questioning role. In some cases, this outside perspective came from as close as Belgium and other European countries. In other cases, it came from farther away - from North Africa or North America - which reveals surrealism's engagement with non-European, formerly colonized cultures, reflects its staunchly anti-colonial stance, and confirms the movement as something more than an aesthetic phenomenon. Along with its aesthetic mission, surrealism was also, and perhaps more importantly, a powerful political and social reality. This issue examines works by artists, writers, and theorists who were all, in their own ways, located outside of yet close to surrealism and who provide us with a new perspective on this avant-garde and modernist movement. Martine Antle Surrealism and the Orient Adam Jolles The Tactile Turn: Envisioning a Post-Colonial Aesthetic in France Jonathan P. Eburne Automatism and Terror: Surrealism, Theory, and the Postwar Left Pierre Taminiaux Breton and Trotsky: The Revolutionary Memory of Surrealism Richard Stamelman Photography: The Marvelous Precipitate of Desire Robert Harvey Where's Duchamp?--Out Queering the Field Raphaelle Moine From Surrealist Cinema to Surrealism in the Cinema: Does a Surrealist Genre Exist in Film? Georgiana M. M. Colvile Between Surrealism and Magic Realism: The Early Feature Films of André Delvaux, 1926-2002--the Other Delvaux Katharine Conley Surrealism and Outsider Art: From the Automatic Message to André Breton's Collection