Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226203003)

German writer, critic, and theorist Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) died nearly a century ago, but his influence is still being felt today. Considered by some a mad eccentric and by others a visionary political thinker in his own time, he is now experiencing a revival thanks to a new generation of scholars who are rightfully situating him in the modernist pantheon.
Glass Love Perpetual Motion is the first collection of Scheerbart's multifarious writings to be published in English. In addition to a selection of his fantastical short stories, it includes the influential architectural manifesto Glass Architecture and his literary tour-de-force Perpetual Motion: The Story of an Invention. The latter, written in the guise of a scientific work (complete with technical diagrams), was taken as such when first published but in reality is a fiction--albeit one with an important message. Glass Love Perpetual Motion is richly illustrated with period material, much of it never before reproduced, including a selection of artwork by Paul Scheerbart himself. Accompanying this original material is a selection of essays by scholars, novelists, and filmmakers commissioned for this publication to illuminate Scheerbart's importance, then and now, in the worlds of art, architecture, and culture.

Coedited by artist Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin, with new artwork created for this publication by McElheny, Glass Love Perpetual Motion is a long-overdue monument to a modern master.

Author: Paul Scheerbart
ISBN-10: 022620300X
ISBN-13: 9780226203003
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 10/03/2014
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.64lbs
Size: 10.28h x 7.23w x 1.34d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2015 pg. 1149