
Bad Modernisms
Duke University Press
Published on 14. April 2006
Book
Paperback/Softback
376 pages
978-0-8223-3797-3 (ISBN)
Description
Modernism is hot again. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, poets and architects, designers and critics, teachers and artists are rediscovering the virtues of the previous century's most vibrant cultural constellation. Yet this widespread embrace raises questions about modernism's relation to its own success. Modernism's "badness"-its emphasis on outrageous behavior, its elevation of negativity, its refusal to be condoned-seems essential to its power. But once modernism is accepted as "good" or valuable (as a great deal of modernist art now is), its status as a subversive aesthetic intervention seems undermined. The contributors to Bad Modernisms tease out the contradictions in modernism's commitment to badness.Bad Modernisms thus builds on and extends the "new modernist studies," recent work marked by the application of diverse methods and attention to texts and artists not usually labeled as modernist. In this collection, these developments are exemplified by essays ranging from a reading of dandyism in 1920s Harlem as a performance of a "bad" black modernist imaginary to a consideration of Filipino American modernism in the context of anticolonialism. The contributors reconsider familiar figures-such as Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Josef von Sternberg, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. H. Auden, and Wyndham Lewis-and bring to light the work of lesser-known artists, including the writer Carlos Bulosan and the experimental filmmaker Len Lye. Examining cultural artifacts ranging from novels to manifestos, from philosophical treatises to movie musicals, and from anthropological essays to advertising campaigns, these essays signal the capaciousness and energy galvanizing the new modernist studies.
Contributors. Lisa Fluet, Laura Frost, Michael LeMahieu, Heather K. Love, Douglas Mao, Jesse Matz, Joshua L. Miller, Monica L. Miller, Sianne Ngai, Martin Puchner, Rebecca L. Walkowitz
Contributors. Lisa Fluet, Laura Frost, Michael LeMahieu, Heather K. Love, Douglas Mao, Jesse Matz, Joshua L. Miller, Monica L. Miller, Sianne Ngai, Martin Puchner, Rebecca L. Walkowitz
Reviews / Votes
"Bright, disquieting, and energetic, these essays bring back to life the complex political and artistic provocations of their modernisms. Badly needed."-Rachel Bowlby, author of Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping "I envision Bad Modernisms as a linchpin in the 'new modernist studies.' This sprightly, compelling volume gives us a map for that conversation; offers a guide to the tangled pathways of history, criticism, and cultural practice that converge in modernist studies; and reveals the astonishingly ample, indeed global, playing field of the discourse of modernism."-Jennifer Wicke, author of Advertising Fictions: Literature, Advertisement, and Social ReadingMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
41 b&w photos
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
517 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-3797-3 (9780822337973)
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
Other editions
Additional editions

Douglas Mao | Rebecca L. Walkowitz
Bad Modernisms
E-Book
04/2006
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€208.99
Available for download
Persons
Douglas Mao is Associate Professor of English at Cornell University. He is the author of Solid Objects: Modernism and the Test of Production.
Rebecca L. Walkowitz is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation and a coeditor of several books, including The Turn to Ethics.
Rebecca L. Walkowitz is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation and a coeditor of several books, including The Turn to Ethics.
Content
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Modernisms Bad and New / Douglas Mao and Rebecca L. Walkowitz 1
Forced Exile: Walter Pater's Queer Modernism / Heather K. Love 19
The Aftershocks of Blast: Manifestos, Satire, and the Rear-Guard of Modernism / Martin Puchner 44
Nonsense Modernism: The Limits of Modernity and the Feelings of Philosophy in Wittgenstein's Tractatus / Michael LeMahieu 68
The Romance of Cliche: E.M. Hull, D.H. Lawrence, and Interwar Erotic Fiction / Laura Frost 94
Virginia Woolf's Evasion: Critical Cosmopolitanism and British Modernism / Rebecca L. Walkowitz 119
Black Venus, Blonde Venus / Sianne Ngai 145
The Black Dandy as Bad Modernist / Monica L. Miller 179
A Shaman in Common: Lewis, Auden, and the Queerness of Liberalism / Douglas Mao 206
The Gorgeous Laughter of filipino Modernity: Carlos Bulosan's The Laughter of My Father / Joshua L. Miller 238
Hit-Man Modernism / Lisa Fluet 269
Cultures of Impression / Jesse Matz 298
Bibliography 331
Notes on Contributors 353
Index 355
Introduction: Modernisms Bad and New / Douglas Mao and Rebecca L. Walkowitz 1
Forced Exile: Walter Pater's Queer Modernism / Heather K. Love 19
The Aftershocks of Blast: Manifestos, Satire, and the Rear-Guard of Modernism / Martin Puchner 44
Nonsense Modernism: The Limits of Modernity and the Feelings of Philosophy in Wittgenstein's Tractatus / Michael LeMahieu 68
The Romance of Cliche: E.M. Hull, D.H. Lawrence, and Interwar Erotic Fiction / Laura Frost 94
Virginia Woolf's Evasion: Critical Cosmopolitanism and British Modernism / Rebecca L. Walkowitz 119
Black Venus, Blonde Venus / Sianne Ngai 145
The Black Dandy as Bad Modernist / Monica L. Miller 179
A Shaman in Common: Lewis, Auden, and the Queerness of Liberalism / Douglas Mao 206
The Gorgeous Laughter of filipino Modernity: Carlos Bulosan's The Laughter of My Father / Joshua L. Miller 238
Hit-Man Modernism / Lisa Fluet 269
Cultures of Impression / Jesse Matz 298
Bibliography 331
Notes on Contributors 353
Index 355