Concepts of the World: The French Avant-Garde and the Idea of the International, 1910–1940

What did it mean to be part of the French avant-garde in the early 20th century? Rentzou explores this question in her latest book, Concepts of the World (Northwestern University Press), touching on the global audience and cosmopolitan identity of these avant-garde writers and artists. Their works, she argues, constituted powerful political speech, and expressed conflicting feelings about the new, increasingly globalized world around them.