Description
Book Synopsis* The first volume in a new Polity literary studies series, 'Themes in 20th Century Literature and Culture'. * Combines a clear argument for those with no prior knowledge or experience of Modernism with a subtle argument that will appeal to higher level undergraduates and scholars.
Trade Review"In seven pithy chapters Amrstrong manages to write illuminatingly on issues as various as history, time, psychoanalysis, trauma, war, nationality, economics, politics, gender, canonicity, mass culture, advertising, social reform, sexology, the occult and spiritualism, eugenics, subjectivity, technology (especially photography, cinema, and radio), race, and imperialism."
-- Andrzej Gasiorek and Peter Boxall, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
"Typically wide-ranging and consummately synthesized, this is the most stimulating, illuminating and pacey account of modernist culture I have read. Armstrong is one of the foremost authorities in his field and his book is certain to become a critical touchstone for students and experts alike."
-- David Bradshaw, Oxford University
"Tim Amstrong’s Modernism: A Cultural History is a comprehensive and yet original introduction to the culture of modernism, a team Armstrong defines far more widely than previous writers. This book covers a wider range of non-literary topics than any other introduction to modernism, taking in mass culture, psychology, the sciences, technology, race and empire, among many others. But it also includes well-informed and persuasive discussions of a host of literary figures usually ignored in histories of the modern movement. In its sheer inclusiveness, Modernism: A Cultural History expands and alters our notion of what the term 'modernism' can mean."
-- Professor Michael North, UCLA
Table of ContentsPreface.
1 Modernity, Modernism and Time.
2 Mapping Modernism.
3 Modernism, Mass Culture and the Market.
4 Reform! Bodies, Selves, Politics, Aesthetics.
5 The Self and the Senses.
6 The Vibrating Universe: Science, Spiritualism, Technology.
7 Modernism's Others: Race and Empire.
References and Further Reading.
Index
