Description
Book SynopsisExamining the emergence of modernism from the fin-de-siecle primitivist project this volume shows how ethnographic materials shaped a variety of high and low discourses (ethnology, social theory, gender construction, classical scholarship, as well as travel photography) at the turn of the century. Illustrated with 98 photographs and drawings.
Trade Review“This is an unusually rich, subtle, and rewarding collection that brings varied approaches to a crucial topic in modern cultural history. . . . The essays recognize the multi-faceted and complicated nature of the fin-de-siècle conundrum of modernism and primitivism.”—Michael P. Steinberg, Cornell University
Table of ContentsIntroduction Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush; Part I. Savage Anxieties: 1. The presence of the past: ethnographic thinking/literary politics Ronald Bush; 2. Savage crowds, modernism, and modern politics Robert Nye; 3. Victorian promiscuity: Greek ethics and primitive exemplars Elazar Barkan; Part II. Raw Anthropology: 4. The moment of prestidigitation: magic, illusion and mana in the thought of Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss Vincent Crapanzano; 5. Patterns of strangeness: Franz Boas, modernism, and the origins of anthropology Julia E. Liss; Part III. Victorian Vertigo: 6. In a glass darkly: photography, the premodern, and Victorian horror Joss Lutz Marsh; Part IV. (Ethno)graphic Images: 7. Manipulated images: European photographs of Pacific peoples Virgina-Lee Webb; 8. Travel engravings and the construction of the primitive Christopher B. Steiner; 9. Gauguin's French baggage: decadence and colonialism in Tahiti Nancy Perloff; 10. Modernism's African mask: the Stein-Pica sso collaboration Michael North; Part V. Culture and Displacements: 11. The kind of person you have to sound like to sing 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' Robert Dawidoff; 12. Primitive self: colonial impulses in Michel Leiris's L'Afrique fantome Marie-Denise Shelton; 13. Tolerance and taboo: modernist primitivisms and postmodernist pieties Marjorie Perloff; Part VI. Modernism Reconsidered: 14. Modernism, postmodernism and explanation Frank Kermode; Notes; Index.
