Introduction to the Special Issue

James Dowthwaite is Junior Professor for English Literature and Culture at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. He is author of Ezra Pound and 20th Century Theories of Language: Faith with the Word (Routledge, 2025) and Aesthetic Criticism: An Introduction (Routledge, 2026), and has published widely on modernism, decadence, aestheticism, and symbolism. He is co-organiser of the Germany-based network Modernism, Aestheticism, and Decadence Studies. His poems and essays have appeared, amongst other places, in Acumen, AJAP/Review, The Fortnightly Review, The High Window, Literary Imagination, PN Review, Strix, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He is an assistant editor at the NASJ.