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The aim of the ill-fated 1922 Congress of Paris, an international conference organized by Andre Breton, was to diagnose the sources of the "modern spirit." Although the congress had ambitious international goals, it was brought down by a remark with xenophobic connotations. Largely remembered today as the death knell of Paris Dada--the public fight between Tristan Tzara and Breton meant not only that the congress never took place but also that Paris Dada was dissolved--the congress's failure stemmed from the tensions involved in self-consciously defining modernism. Arguing that ambivalence over the concept shaped the main participants' understanding of the congress, I read the congress as a concrete manifestation of the impulse to federate the arts in post-World War I France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]