Abstract
Amidst the clamor and upheaval of World War I, Zurich proved to be fertile ground for a blossoming literary and artistic movement dedicated to the eradication of the social, political, and creative norms which allowed the war to come about, through a campaign of abstraction and reduction into Nichtigkeit (Nothingness). This was Dada. The means by which this campaign was made operational were varied, as were the many artists and writers who placed themselves on the front lines. One such artist, Emmy Hennings, has, in recent years, become the subject of increased examination and debate, due to her problematic and twice-marginalized position as both a woman and a liberated avant-garde within a still-repressive Wilhelmine society. Under intense scrutiny is the question of whether Hennings served as a leader of the Zurich Dada movement, or as a passive follower, operating under her husband’s able direction; whether she used the Dada movement as a platform on which to voice her contrary opinions or simply as an outlet for politically and socially indifferent self-expression, as some modern scholars contend.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (linked here). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are available for wide dissemination at no cost to readers, with proper attribution (acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal), in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
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