A comprehensive survey tracing the course of the Modernist movement.

This is a groundbreaking work which links the novels of modernist, contemporary, and postcolonial authors to rethink the political nature of cosmopolitanism.

Modernism à la Mode argues that fashion describes why and how literary modernism matters in its own historical moment and ours. Bringing together texts, textiles, and theories of dress, Elizabeth Sheehan shows that writers, including Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, turned to fashion to understand what their own stylized works could do in the context of global capital, systemic violence, and social transformation. Modernists engage with fashion as a mood, a set of material objects, and a target of critique, and, in doing so, anticipate and address contemporary debates centered on the uses of literature and literary criticism amidst the supposed crisis in the humanities. A modernist affect with a purpose, no less. By engaging modernism à la mode—that is, contingently, contextually, and in light of contemporary concerns—this book offers an alternative to the often-untenable distinctions between strong or weak, suspicious or reparative, and politically activist or quietist approaches to literature, which frame current debates about literary methodology. As fashion helps us to describe what modernist texts do, it enables us to do more with modernism as a form of inquiry, perception, and critique. Fashion and modernism are interwoven forms of inquiry, perception, and critique, writes Sheehan. It is fashion that puts the work of early twentieth-century writers in conversation with twenty-first century theories of emotion, materiality, animality, beauty, and history.

Free Indirect Style (FIS) is a linguistic technique that defies the logic of human subjectivity by enabling readers to directly observe the subjective experiences of third-person characters. This book consolidates the existing literary-linguistic scholarship on FIS into a theory that is based around one of its most important effects: consciousness representation. Modernist narratives exhibit intensified formal experimentation and a heightened concern with characters’ conscious experience, and this provides an ideal context for exploring FIS and its implications for character consciousness. This book focuses on three novels that are central to the Modernist canon: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow and James Joyce’s Ulysses. It applies the revised theory of FIS in close semantic analyses of the language in these narratives and combines stylistics with literary criticism, linking interpretations with linguistic features in distinct manifestations of the style.

Modernism in architecture and urban design has failed the American city. This is the decisive conclusion that renowned public intellectual Nathan Glazer has drawn from two decades of writing and thinking about what this architectural movement will bequeath to future generations. In From a Cause to a Style, he proclaims his disappointment with modernism and its impact on the American city. Writing in the tradition of legendary American architectural critics Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs, Glazer contends that modernism, this new urban form that signaled not just a radical revolution in style but a social ambition to enhance the conditions under which ordinary people lived, has fallen short on all counts. The articles and essays collected here--some never published before, all updated--reflect his ideas on subjects ranging from the livable city and public housing to building design, public memorials, and the uses of public space. Glazer, an undisputed giant among public intellectuals, is perhaps best known for his writings on ethnicity and social policy, where the unflinching honesty and independence of thought that he brought to bear on tough social questions has earned him respect from both the Left and the Right. Here, he challenges us to face some difficult truths about the public places that, for better or worse, define who we are as a society. From a Cause to a Style is an exhilarating and thought-provoking book that raises important questions about modernist architecture and the larger social aims it was supposed to have addressed-and those it has abandoned.

The first investigation of how race and gender shaped the presentation and marketing of Modernist decor in postwar America In the world of interior design, mid-century Modernism has left an indelible mark still seen and felt today in countless open-concept floor plans and spare, geometric furnishings. Yet despite our continued fascination, we rarely consider how this iconic design sensibility was marketed to the diverse audiences of its era. Examining advice manuals, advertisements in Life and Ebony, furniture, art, and more, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body offers a powerful new look at how codes of race, gender, and identity influenced—and were influenced by—Modern design and shaped its presentation to consumers. Taking us to the booming suburban landscape of postwar America, Kristina Wilson demonstrates that the ideals defined by popular Modernist furnishings were far from neutral or race-blind. Advertisers offered this aesthetic to White audiences as a solution for keeping dirt and outsiders at bay, an approach that reinforced middle-class White privilege. By contrast, media arenas such as Ebony magazine presented African American readers with an image of Modernism as a style of comfort, security, and social confidence. Wilson shows how etiquette and home decorating manuals served to control women by associating them with the domestic sphere, and she considers how furniture by George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames, as well as smaller-scale decorative accessories, empowered some users, even while constraining others. A striking counter-narrative to conventional histories of design, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body unveils fresh perspectives on one of the most distinctive movements in American visual culture.

A beautiful and expansive look at Modernist design, representing iconic works including architecture, interiors, graphic design, and product design This wide-ranging survey showcases and analyzes the work of dozens of Modernist designers, from those who established the International Style in the 1920s and '30s through the groundbreaking practitioners of the mid-1940s. Modernism, with its powerful aesthetic and compelling philosophical framework, is the twentieth century's most defining movement in design and the applied arts. International architects and designers such as Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionized the built world and how we live in it. Their work rejected historical precedents, prioritizing function over tradition, and their experimentation with new forms, materials, and techniques transformed our living spaces and lifestyles and fundamentally changed the way we think about design. This lively and accessible volume includes sections on furniture, lighting, ceramics and glass, industrial and product design, graphic design and posters, houses and interiors, as well as profiles of more than seventy influential creators. The encyclopedic scope facilitates unexpected connections and offers new insights into the movement. Complete with essays by accomplished scholars and subject specialists, over 600 illustrations, and an illustrated A to Z of designers, architects, and manufacturers, this book is unparalleled and unprecedented in scope. Essential Modernism is an indispensable resource for scholars and students as well as for the designer's studio, the collector's desk, and the enthusiast's library.