The avant-garde has been popular for some time, but its popularity has tended to fly under the radar. This popular avant-garde, conceived as the meeting ground of the avant-garde and popular, avoids the divorce of art and praxis of which the avant-garde has been accused. The Popular Avant-Garde takes stock of the debates about both the historical ( modernist ) and posterior avant-gardes, and sets them in relation to popular culture and art forms. With a critical introduction that examines the concepts of the avant-garde,the popular, and the popular avant-garde, the series of essays analyzes the way in which the avant-garde employs popular genres for political purposes, as well as how the popular acquires a critical function with respect to the avant-garde. Each of the volume's three sections considers a different aspect of the productive exchange between the avant-garde and popular: the popular avant-garde as a culturally hybrid and cross-border phemen; the play between the popular avant-garde and developments in media and techlogy; and the popular avant-garde's upending of conventional ideas about the people and the popular.The Popular Avant-Garde takes a fresh look at the w canical Dadaist, Futurist, and Surrealist movements from the perspectives of gender and sexuality, and cultural and critical theory, while at the same time exploring less well-kwn avant-garde work in literature, film, television, music, photography, dance, sculpture, and the graphic arts. This volume's coverage of the American and Afro-American, Luso-Brazilian and Latin-American, East-European, and Scandinavian avant-gardes, in addition to the vanguards of Spain and other parts of Western Europe, will appeal to all those interested in avant-garde and popular art forms.