Anne Witchard – författare

British Modernism and ChinoiserieEdited by Anne WitchardExplores Chinese artistic and stylistic influences on Modernist practice in early-twentieth century BritainThis volume examines the ways in which an intellectual vogue for a mythic China was a constituent element of British Modernism. Traditionally defined as a decorative style that conjured a fanciful and idealised notion of China, chinoiserie was revived among London’s avant-garde circles, the Bloomsbury group, the Vorticists and others, who like their eighteenth-century forebears, turned to China as a cultural and aesthetic utopia.As part of Modernism’s challenge to the ‘universality’ of so-called Western values and aesthetics, the turn to China would contribute much more than has been acknowledged to Modernist thinking. As these 10 new chapters demonstrate, China as an intellectual and aesthetic utopia dazzled intellectuals and aesthetes. At the same time the consumption of Chinese exoticism became commercialised. The essays show that from cutting-edge Modernist chic to mass culture and consumer products, the vogue for chinoiserie style and motifs permeated the art and design of the period.Key Features* 10 original chapters from leading international figures in the field, including Elizabeth Chang, David Porter and Patricia Laurence* Includes 28 figures (10 in colour) to illustrate the text* Coverage of literature, painting and poetry, as well as performance and visual media, theatre, fashion and dance, interior and garden design and international exhibitions.Anne Witchard is a Senior Lecturer in the department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Westminster.

London has taken a central role in urban Gothic, from key canonic texts like Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula through modern Gothic texts to the 'tourist gothic' of rebranded gastropubs and ghost tours. As a specific category, London Gothic is becoming as important for understanding ourselves today as it has been for thinking about the cultural productions of the late-nineteenth century. This is the first book to focus on Gothic representations of London, offering a range of essays from established and new scholars reading London Gothic as it is manifested in a variety of media and through varied critical approaches.

London has taken a central role in urban Gothic, from key canonic texts like Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula through modern Gothic texts to the 'tourist gothic' of rebranded gastropubs and ghost tours. As a specific category, London Gothic is becoming as important for understanding ourselves today as it has been for thinking about the cultural productions of the late-nineteenth century. This is the first book to focus on Gothic representations of London, offering a range of essays from established and new scholars reading London Gothic as it is manifested in a variety of media and through varied critical approaches.

'London is blacker than lacquer'. Lao She remains revered as one of China great modern writers. His life and work have been the subject of volumes of critique, analysis and study. However, the four years the young aspiring writer spent in London between 1924 and 1929 have largely been overlooked. Anne Witchard, a specialist in the modernist milieu of London between the wars, reveals Lao She's encounter with British high modernism and literature from Dickens to Conrad to Joyce. Lao She arrived from his native Peking to the whirl of London's West End scene - Bloomsburyites, Vorticists,A avant-gardistsA of every stripe, Ezra Pound and the cabaret at the Cave of the Golden Calf.A Immersed in the West End 1920s worldA of risque flappers, the tabloid sensation of England's 'most infamous Chinaman Brilliant Chang' and Anna May Wong's scandalous filmA Piccadilly, simultaneously Lao She spent time in the notorious and much sensationalised East End Chinatown of Limehouse. Out of his experiences came his great novel of London Chinese life and tribulations -A Ma & Son: Two Chinese in London.However, as Witchard reveals, Lao She's London years affected his writing and ultimately the course of Chinese modernism in far more profound ways.