Book Launch: 'The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and the Frobenius Institute'

Editor Erik Tonning will present the book in dialogue with Pound specialist Roxana Preda. This event is presented by the Scottish Network for Religion and Literature.

This event will be taking place in the Martin Hall in addition to being streamed online. Please register for the corresponding ticket for your attendance type.

Erik Tonning is Professor of English at NLA University College, Norway, Professor II of British Literature and Culture at the University of Bergen, Norway, and Honorary Fellow of the Divinity Faculty, University of Edinburgh. He is co-editor of the Modernist Archives series and the Historicizing Modernism series, both published by Bloomsbury.

Roxana Preda is Leverhulme Fellow of American Literature at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of (Post)modern Ezra Pound (2001) and Professional Attention: Ezra Pound and the Career of Modern Criticism (2018). She has edited The Edinburgh Companion to Ezra Pound and the Arts (2019) and is the creator of the digital platform ezrapoundcantos.org, dedicated to Pound’s major long poem, The Cantos.

Collecting in full for the first time the correspondence between Ezra Pound and members of Leo Frobenius' Forschungsinstitut für Kulturmorphologie in Frankfurt across a 30-year period, this book sheds new light on an important but previously unexplored influence on Pound's controversial intellectual development in the Fascist era.

Ezra Pound's long-term interest in anthropology and ethnography exerted a profound influence on early 20th century literary Modernism. These letters reveal the extent of the influence of Frobenius' concept of 'Paideuma' on Pound's poetic and political writings during this period and his growing Erik Tonning engagement with the culture of Nazi Germany

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Martin Hall, New College, Mound Place, Edinburgh, United Kingdom