SOLID OBJECTS ebook download Douglas Mao

Solid Objects: Modernism and the Test of Production

In this provocative and wide-ranging study, Douglas Mao argues that a profound tension between veneration of human production and anxiety about production's dangers lay at the heart of literary modernism. Focusing on the work of Virginia Woolf, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens, Mao shows that modernists were captivated by physical objects, which, regarded as objects, seemed to partake of a utopian serenity beyond the reach of human ideological conflicts. Under a variety of historical pressures, Mao observes, these writers came to revere the making of such things, and especially the crafting of the work of art, as the surest guarantee of meaning for an individual life. Yet they also found troubling contradictions here, since any kind of making, be it handicraft or mass production, could also be understood as a violation of the nonhuman world by an increasingly predatory and imperialistic subjectivity. If modernists began by embracing production as a test of meaning, then they frequently ended by testing production itself and finding it wanting. To make this case, Mao interweaves social and political history with readings in literature, the visual arts, philosophy, and economics. He explores modernism's relation to aestheticism, existentialism, and the culture of consumption, joining current debates on the politics of engagement and the social meanings of art. And he shows conclusively, in this elegantly written and consistently surprising work, that we cannot understand the theories and practices of modernism without addressing the question of the object and production's ambivalent allure.

Share your thoughts on the Solid Objects: Modernism and the Test of Production ebook with other internet viewers!

Title of ebook: Solid Objects: Modernism and the Test of Production
ISBN: 9781400822706
parent-ISBN: 9780691059266
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Pages: 312
Published: 02-2001
Released online for download: 02-15-2001
Author of eBook: Mao, Douglas

Format

Encrypted

Sku

ISBN

File size

Security

Printing

Copying

Read aloud

Devices

Digital Editions

Yes

1400805074

9781400805075

1556 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

Microsoft

Yes

1400805066

9781400805068

567 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

Microsoft

Yes

140082270X

9781400822706

567 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

Top eBooks in "Literary Criticism"

Collected Poems

by B. Yeats, W.

This selection of Blake's work was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Routledge from W.B. Yeats. Yeats, one of the few poets comparable to Blake, prepared a unique ...more

Best price: $19.20

CliffsNotes The Catcher in the Rye

by Baldwin, M. a., Salinger, J. D.

In the tradition of coming-of-age stories, Holden Caulfield's "odyssey" of four days leaves him broken by society, yet still compassionate. This was one of the first...more

Best price: $5.24

CliffsNotes A Separate Peace

by Higgins, Charles

While adolescence is never easy, during wartime its difficulty is more pronounced. This story of a boy's growing up and floating between identities is filled with ...more

Best price: $5.24

Cliffs Notes for Hinton's The Outsiders

by Clark, Janet

This novel of the 1960s is a story about teenagers written by a teenager. Ponyboy Curtis, a 14-year-old boy, struggles with right and wrong in a society within which ...more

Best price: $5.24

Appropriate Enough: Telling "Classical" Allusions in Chaucer's Canterbur

by Hanning, Robert W.

essay on "Classical" Allusions in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales...more

Best price: $6.11

Accidental Playboy

by Ueland, Leif

Sometime journalist Leif Ueland has hit rock bottom as a straight single male: not only does he not have a girlfriend, but he's also a really nice guy who's visibly ...more

Best price: $8.76

CliffsNotes Inherit the Wind

by Pavlos, Suzanne

An illuminating guide to the Jerome Lawrence and Robert e. Lee play, this teacher favorite dramatizes the evolution-versus-creationism debate. It pits fundamentalist ...more

Best price: $5.24

Other Literary & Poetry eBooks Categories

Poetry General (426)

Literary General (1479)

Literary Collections (44)

Literary Criticism (1782)

American (213)

Ancient, Classical & Medieval (31)

Anthologies (multiple authors) (32)

English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh (54)

Inspirational & Religious (90)

Short Stories (561)