
Reclaiming Modernity
Essays on a Paradoxical Nostalgia
Larry Bennett(Author)
University of Illinois Press
Published on 25. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
200 pages
978-0-252-08848-3 (ISBN)
Description
Why do we seek to return to the past or rescue pieces of the past that may have value in the present? Why does nostalgia attach to an approach to the world, social rules, and material products that willfully rejected the past? Larry Bennett explores the complexities of nostalgia with considerations of the historic preservation of brutalist architecture, specifically Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago; the memoirs and recollections of early and mid-twentieth-century Brooklyn and Detroit; and the turntable's rebirth as a musical instrument alongside the vinyl LP's resurgence as a prized way of consuming music. Bennett tracks modernity as expressed through ideas, artistic products, and widespread social practices. His consideration of nostalgia focuses on our inclination to rediscover value in people, places, and social habits diminished by the passage of time.
Provocative and multidisciplinary, Reclaiming Modernity delves into the paradox of how we feel nostalgia for ideas and times that emerged from an impulse to shun nostalgia.
Provocative and multidisciplinary, Reclaiming Modernity delves into the paradox of how we feel nostalgia for ideas and times that emerged from an impulse to shun nostalgia.
Reviews / Votes
"Bennett explores an essential contradiction about modernism and modernity: that there is often nostalgia for a cultural movement that, by definition, eschews nostalgia. He leans into contemporary debates about whether 'recent past' buildings and other modernist technologies such as the vinyl LP should be preserved and embraced while presenting his arguments in prose that is polished, confident, and a pleasure to read."--Rachel Weber, author of From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New ChicagoMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Edition type
New edition
Illustrations
9 black & white photographs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-252-08848-3 (9780252088483)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Larry Bennett is a professor emeritus at DePaul University and the author of The Third City: Chicago and American Urbanism.
Content
Preface
Three Modernities
The Historic Preservation of Not-Old Buildings
Two Lost Cities
Unruly Products
Nostalgia for Modernity
Notes
Index
Three Modernities
The Historic Preservation of Not-Old Buildings
Two Lost Cities
Unruly Products
Nostalgia for Modernity
Notes
Index