Imprints of the New Modernist Editing: an intermedia exploration

This project will maximise the previously unforeseen potential of the work of the AHRC-funded New Modernist Editing Network (NME) to meet needs identified by the editors and artists who were members of the NME. The NME Network ran from September 2016 to September 2017, bringing together academics, publishers, editors and artists engaged with or with an interest in the scholarly editing of the modernist text. The specific concerns of the NME can be grouped under two headings:

a) technological and practical: the effect of the rapid change, development and innovation in print technologies during the period in which these texts were being produced, alongside writer's unprecedented embracing of the process of revision in this period.
b) aesthetic and cultural: the particular characteristics of fluidity and uncertainty permeating modernist aesthetics, the centrality of the relationship between the verbal and visual in the modernist period, and the breadth of allusion characteristic of many modernist texts.

Our non-academic members noted that these issues and arising discussions had significant implications for numerous non-academic creative practitioners and professionals; and that creative artists, writers, editors, proofreaders, printmakers, publishers would benefit from the opportunity to come together in groups to explore these scholarly and creative issues in hands-on ways, to maximise knowledge exchange and skills enhancement. Such opportunities were seen as particularly important because, although many individuals work across a number of creative or professional fields, there are limited opportunities available for them to meet others with similarly broad fields of activity.

The outputs of the NME, including a digital edition of a short fiction by Virginia Woolf and summaries of the discussions held at the Network events posted on the NME website, capture some of the possible approaches to the challenge of editing a modernist text. The work of the NME has already had significant impact across the academic community in the field of modernism; this follow-on funding will extend and expand the impact of the project into various non-academic or academic-associated fields.

The six events which form the project have been designed in collaboration with project partners from a range of professional and creative fields to ensure we engage a wide range of potential beneficiaries. They are also informed by our non-academic members' very positive responses to the NME's open and discursive workshop model. All events will focus around a selection of modernist texts of particular interest from an editing perspective, ranging across genres and styles, and from across the modernist period. The centrepiece activity will be an exhibition of works to be held at Shandy Hall. We will issue a call for proposals to make creative work responding to any or all of these texts, in the context of the findings arising from the work of the NME. Leading up to this exhibition we will host five workshops: 1) modernist print technologies 2) the book as physical object of social and cultural exchange 3) pochoir printmaking technique and the text/image relationship 4) languages of editing, and 5) curating the verbal and the visual (responding to the exhibition of works). These will be run by experts drawn from our project partners including artists, social enterprise leaders, editors, publishers, curators and academics.

Collectively, these events will bring the insights of the NME - the questions raised by the activity of editing a modernist text for the twenty-first century as much as the conclusions drawn - into productive dialogue with those involved in text-based work across a wide range of creative and professional fields, at a moment when reflecting on the particular qualities of the modernist text is of increasing interest to a post-postmodern generation of creative artists, writers, designers, and publishing and editorial professionals.

The project's impact agenda is driven by the conversations initiated by the artist and editor members of the NME Network about the potential benefit of bringing the Network's activities and outputs to a wider non-academic audience. This suggestion was confirmed when we used their networks to contact editors, publishers, social enterprises, art galleries and curators who were keen to enter into partnership with us in developing this project, which will benefit a range of intersecting communities:

Creative artists, designers and writers: Our call for proposals will expose creative practitioners to the work of the NME, providing information about the modernist texts selected for response and about approaches to editing explored by the NME, in addition to providing an opportunity for selected emerging and established artists to have their work exhibited. The hands-on workshops on print technologies and pochoir technique, delivered by experts in the field, will enable creative professionals and interested amateurs to acquire and hone specialist skills as well as understanding their historical and cultural context.
Writers, editors and proofreaders: The workshops on print technologies, languages of editing, and curating the verbal and the visual will be of particular benefit to writers, independent editors and proofreaders. The languages of editing workshop has been designed in response to a need identified by our project partner Corridor8 among the freelance editors and writers they use, and combines providing information about the historical context of the modernist journal with practical approaches to editing historical and contemporary avant-garde texts, as well as the development and use of modern editorial markup languages. The workshop on curating will enable editors and proofreaders to consider how they work with material texts in dialogue with visual and fine art.
Independent publishers: The workshop on languages of editing will be of particular benefit to independent publishers. The call for proposals is also likely to attract text-based works which may be of interest to independent publishers.
Curators: The workshop on curating will address the specific challenges faced by curators of exhibitions including verbal and visual materials in a practical way - emerging from, though not limited to, the historical and aesthetic context of modernism. The Shandy Hall exhibition gives a clear practical focus to the workshop.
The third sector and public sector: The proposed activities bring together creative practitioners, professionals and members of the public to investigate issues emerging from cutting-edge scholarly activity on editing the modernist text. Our project partners are the Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall, a charitable trust; MyBookcase, a social enterprise whose founder is also a sculptor; and Corridor8, a not-for-profit publishing platform. Each partner has enthusiastically identified the potential benefits of the project to their target audience, and has worked closely with the PI and CoIs to shape the activities so as to maximise the accessibility and value of each to their non-academic networks. MyBookcase and Corridor8 have also explicitly identified the benefits to their own organisation of a) an increased knowledge and understanding of the practical activities of the scholarly editor of the modernist text in particular, and b) a deeper understanding of the material contexts in which modernist texts were produced. Each has well-established networks and contacts across a range of beneficiary constituencies, and therefore collectively bring expertise in reaching and engaging these constituencies.
General public: Participants in all events may be drawn from the general public. Our project partners' networks will be crucial in targeting our publicity at individuals with an interest in editing and editorial practices, modernist aesthetics, book history and the book form, or twentieth-century printmaking.