Modernist Occupations: Time in the Work of Literary Imagination

Project Information

TimeWorks

Grant agreement ID: 101105988

DOI

10.3030/101105988

EC signature date 24 April 2023

Start date 1 October 2023

End date 30 September 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 284 179,68

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TimeWorks (Modernist Occupations: Time in the Work of Literary Imagination)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project aims to study the temporality of work in modernist literature, through a focus on the work of writing. (To be updated before project finish)

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

1. Refined research direction based on empirical findings: the project’s focus has shifted toward lower-middle-class literature, leading to a restructured WP2 and clearer attention to class, gender, and time.
2. Historical-sociological study of literary production: research has clarified how publishing history, audience formation, and socioeconomic conditions influenced the temporal contexts of modernist writing.
3. Case studies of writer and artist figures: analysis of fiction from the turn of the twentieth century has generated preliminary results for articles on: a) the literary formation of the lower middle class, b) the embattled lower-middle-class writer in the work of George Orwell, c) labor refusal and suspended temporality in writing by Mina Loy.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

New theoretical framework on labor and time in literature: the project has developed tools linking representations of writers and artists to social questions of labor and temporality, with emphasis on the rise of the lower-middle class as key historical and literary component.