Research Catalog

The persistence of modernism : loss and mourning in the twentieth century

Title

The persistence of modernism : loss and mourning in the twentieth century / Madelyn Detloff.

Author

Detloff, Madelyn, 1965-

Publication

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 13-988	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

xii, 213 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Modernism is commonly perceived as a response to the cataclysmic events of the early twentieth century. To what extent then can we explain its continued persistence? Madelyn Detloff argues for modernism's relevance to our own age, a time of escalating loss, retribution and desire. Some of the social formations that inspired modernist cultural production - xenophobic nationalism and imperial hubris - are still with us. Writers such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, who saw themselves as outsiders with a precarious sense of belonging to their dominant culture, are, Detloff claims, still able to give us insight into our contemporary narratives of loss, recovery, memory and nation. Detloff extends her conceptualisation to include current writers like Pat Barker and Hanif Kureshi, who have taken up the modernist thread in their own work; the result is an ambitious study that will appeal to all students and scholars of Modernism.

Subjects

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-209) and index.

Contents

Woolf's resilience -- Stein's shame -- H.D.'s wars -- Pictures, arguments, and empathy -- The promise and peril of metic intimacy -- Orpheus, AIDS, and The hours.

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