Modernism Beyond the Avant-Garde: Embodying Experience PDF
Preview Modernism Beyond the Avant-Garde: Embodying Experience
MODERNISM BEYOND THE AVANT-GARDE Criticshavetraditionallymaintainedthatcapitalism’sresurgenceafter World War II precipitated the transition from modernism to post- modernism.Thisrevisionistaccountshowsthatmodernismdoesnot simply decline. By foregrounding phenomenological conceptions of bodily experience, Jason M. Baskin reveals modernism’s ongoing vitality. Key postwar writers, critics and philosophers, including Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Ralph Ellison and Raymond Williams, as well as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Theodor Adorno, developedanaestheticsofembodimentthatadaptedmodernismtoa new postwar landscape. Working across differences of race, gender, national and intellectual tradition, genre and form, Baskin contends that these authors used ordinary bodily experiences, such as percep- tion,memoryandlaughter,toimaginemodesofcommonbeingand purposethatwereotherwiseunavailableinapostwarsocietydomin- ated by liberal capitalism. . is Senior Lecturer in English at University of Exeter, where he specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature, modernism and critical theory. He has published essays and book reviews in Cultural Critique, Mediations, Postmodern Cul- ture,BostonReview,HarvardReviewandtheWashingtonPost,aswell astheeditedcollectionsUnderstandingMerleau-Ponty,Understanding Modernism () and Neoliberalism and Contemporary Literary Culture (). MODERNISM BEYOND THE AVANT-GARDE Embodying Experience JASON M. BASKIN UniversityofExeter UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCBBS,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,thFloor,NewYork,,USA WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,,Australia –,rdFloor,Plot,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre,NewDelhi–,India AnsonRoad,#–/,Singapore CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/ :./ ©JasonM.Baskin Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished PrintedandboundinGreatBritainbyClaysLtd,ElcografS.p.A. AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData :Baskin,JasonM.,-author. :Modernismbeyondtheavant-gardeembodyingexperience/JasonM.Baskin. :Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversity Press,.|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. :|(hardback)| (pbk.) ::Modernism(Literature)|Postmodernism(Literature)| Capitalismandliterature. :.|/.–dc LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/ ----Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Contents Acknowledgments page vi List of Abbreviations ix Introduction: Late Modernism and the Aesthetics of Embodiment Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetry of Perception Ezra Pound’s Scraps of a Self Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Laughter Raymond Williams’s Collaborative Labor Conclusion Notes Index v Acknowledgments Writing an academic book can be an isolated endeavor, but it was the support of many people over many years that made this book possible. IwanttostartbyexpressingmyimmensegratitudetoMichaelWoodand Susan Stewart, who encouraged this project from its inception. I owe a huge debt for their confidence in my work, generous feedback and ongoing mentorship. Dan Blanton offered rigorous and challenging responses to this manuscript at every stage of its development. Our conversations have crucially shaped the arguments in this book, and all of my scholarly work. I also want to especially thank J. K. Barret, Rachel Galvin,BenjWidissandStevenYao;theirastuteinsights,wiseadviceand encouragement significantly improved this book, and made it possible for me complete it. Ihavebenefitedfromtheknowledgeandguidanceofteachers,mentors, colleagues and friends at several institutions. Of the many wonderful teachers at Harvard, I especially want to acknowledge the late Barbara Johnson, whose example in particular helped set me on the path to an academic career and continues to serve as an inspiration. At Princeton, DianaFuss,BillGleasonandEstherSchorofferedkeyencouragementand insight. A fellowship year at the Center for Human Values, led by K. Anthony Appiah, provided an ideal space to get this project off the ground. During a two-year fellowship at the California Institute of Tech- nology, the faculty and staff of the Humanities Division, including Kevin Gilmartin, Dehn Gilmore, Kristine Haugen, Matthew Hunter, Cathy Jurca and Cindy Weinstein, provided a generative intellectual environ- ment.AttheUniversityofWyoming,Iwasfortunatetofindacommunity of wonderful friends and colleagues in Laramie, especially Ulrich Adelt, Paul Bergstraesser, John Dorst, Andy Fitch, Teena Gabrielson, Adam Henne, Chad Hennerman, Michelle Jarman, Frieda Knobloch, Kristin McTigue, Miriam Moore, Quincy Newell, Danielle Pafunda, Peter Par- olin, Caskey Russell and Marcus Watson. I also want to express my deep vi Acknowledgments vii gratitude to Ginger Sossaman and the amazing staff at University of Wyoming’s Early Care and Education Center, especially Rhianna Handschu, Michelle Kearns, Jaclyn Klinginsmith, and Shaila Limon, for the outstanding, loving care they provided for my children. Finally, my new colleagues at the University of Exeter, including Tim Cooper, Jason Hall, Kate Hext, Natalie Pollard and Rob Magnuson Smith, have gener- ously welcomed me to the United Kingdom and helped me to see this book through its final stages. I am especially appreciative of all those colleagues and friends whose intellectual engagement, sound advice or general camaraderie has aided in writing this book: Elise Archias, Jeremy Braddock, Michael D’Arcy, Thomas Davis, Elizabeth Duquette, Brent Hayes Edwards, Amir Eshel, JedEsty,GloriaFisk,RenéeFox,JonathanFoltz,RudolphGlitz,Matthew Hart, Briallen Hopper, Mitchum Huehls, Emily Hyde, Aaron Jaffe, Joseph Jeon, Evan Kindley, Warren Liu, Greg Londe, Meredith Martin, Walter Benn Michaels, Ariane Mildenberg, Mathias Nilges, Deirdre O’Dwyer, Siobhan Phillips, Jason Potts, Lindsay Reckson, Emilio Sauri, Michael Sayeau, Claire Seiler, StephenShapiro, Rachel Greenwald Smith, Charles Tung, Barrett Watten, Tim Watson, Gillian White and Daniel Worden. IamgratefultothetwoanonymousreviewersforCambridgeUniversity Press for their time and the care with which they considered my manu- script. Their generous responses and judicious recommendations strengthened it considerably. I also want to thank my editors, Ray Ryan and Edgar Mendez, for their investment in the project, and Sapphire Duveau, for skillfully managing the production process. Stephanie Sak- son’s sharp copyedits improved the manuscript, and Adrian Markle’s crucial last-minute intervention corrected many of my errors. All remaining mistakes are my own. I also acknowledge the following permissions. Portions of Chapter appeared in different form as “Romanticism, Culture, Collaboration: Raymond Williams Beyond the Avant-Garde,” Cultural Critique (Winter ): –. I thank the University of Minnesota Press for publishingmywork,andprovidingpermissionforitto bereprinted here. ExcerptsfromTHEPISANCANTOS,byEzraPound,copyright© byEzraPound,arereprintedbypermissionofNewDirectionsPublishing Corp.ExcerptsfromunpublishednotebookswrittenbyElizabethBishop, copyright © by the Alice H. Methfessel Trust, are printed by permissionofFarrar,StrausandGirouxonbehalfofTheElizabethBishop Estate. viii Acknowledgments Finally, I thank my family, to whom this book is dedicated. To my parents,JonandBarbara,whoseloveandsupportmadethisbookpossible. To Erin Forbes, whose sharp insight improved every page, and whose humor, encouragement and love have sustained me in completing this project,andineverythingelse.Finally,toLenaandTalia,whoamazeand inspire me everyday.
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