Modernism and Close Reading

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theories Of Reading ◽  
Modernist Studies ◽  
Contemporary Climate

The kinship between modernism and close reading has long between taken for granted. But for that reason, it has also gone unexamined. As the archives, timeframes, and cultural contexts of global modernist studies proliferate, the field’s rapport with close reading no longer appears self-evident or guaranteed—even though for countless students studying literary modernism still invariably means studying close reading. This authoritative collection of essays illuminates close reading’s conceptual, institutional, and pedagogical genealogies as a means of examining its enduring potential. The volume brings together a cast of world-renowned scholars to offer an account of some of the things we might otherwise know, and need to know, about the history of modernist theories of reading, before then providing a sense of how the futures for critical reading look different in light of the multiple ways in which modernism has been close-read. The volume responds to a contemporary climate of unprecedented reconstitution for the field: it takes stock of close reading’s methodological possibilities in the wake of modernist studies’ geographical, literary-historical, and interdisciplinary expansions; and it shows how the political, ethical, and aesthetic consequences of attending to matters of form complicate ideological preconceptions about the practice of formalism itself. By reassessing the intellectual commitments and institutional conditions that have shaped modernism in criticism as well as in the classroom, we are able to ask new questions about close reading that resonate across literary and cultural studies. Invigorating that critical venture, this volume enriches our vocabulary for addressing close reading’s perpetual development and diversification.

Dynamic Form

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cara L. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Mina Loy ◽  
Spatial Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modernist Studies ◽  
Verbal Category

This book traces how intermedial experiments shape modernist texts from 1900 to 1950. Considering literature alongside painting, sculpture, photography, and film, the book examines how these arts inflect narrative movement, contribute to plot events, and configure poetry and memoir. As forms and formal theories cross from one artistic realm to another and back again, modernism shows its obsession with form—and even at times becomes a formalism itself—but as the book states, that form is far more dynamic than we have given it credit for. Form fulfills such various functions that we cannot characterize it as a mere container for content or matter, nor can we consign it to ignominy opposite historicism or political commitment. As a structure or scheme that enables action, form in modernism can be plastic, protean, or even fragile, and works by Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Mina Loy, Evelyn Waugh, and Gertrude Stein demonstrate the range of form's operations. Revising three major formal paradigms—spatial form, pure form, and formlessness—and recasting the history of modernist form, the book proposes an understanding of form as a verbal category, as a kind of doing. It thus opens new possibilities for conversation between modernist studies and formalist studies and simultaneously promotes a capacious rethinking of the convergence between literary modernism and creative work in other media.

Alexander Sokurov’s “Faust”: Projection of Political Disasters in the History of the XX Century on Goethe's Tragedy

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
Nikolai Andreyevich Khrenov
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Masses

The Sokurov’s film, based on Goethe's tragedy, is not a usual screen version. The use of a classical piece in order to make a statement about the present could turn into a vulgar and superficial interpretation. But the director’s idea to include new film into the tetralogy, i.e. the group of films dedicated to the dictators of the XX century, implies close reading of the original. Trying to understand the initial Goethe's intensions, the author (series of articles, the beginning see Issue # 17) discovers a source of complex of de monism in the Western culture, which includes explanation of the masses’ perception of the political leaders.

Lost Knowledge and the History of the Arts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Bertucci
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Preliminary Step ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mechanical Arts ◽  
Academie Francaise

This chapter situates the emergence of the projects on the “history of the arts” in the political and cultural contexts of the 1660s, particularly with respect to the memorandum on trade that Colbert prepared for Louis XIV in 1664. It addresses the ongoing discourse on lost knowledge, revived in the late 1680s by the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, which divided the Académie Francaise and intrigued the reading public. The mechanical arts offered an abundance of evidence to support the new idea that human knowledge was cumulative, which was the preliminary step for the elaboration of the notion of progress.

The Political Fallacy

PMLA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 132 (5) ◽  
pp. 1214-1219
Author(s):  
Sandra Macpherson
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Modes Of Life ◽  
Extended Discussion

What kind of action is literary criticism? In literary criticism: a concise political history, Joseph North tells us up front: it's political action. His history “is explicitly motivated by present concerns: one has something like a goal, and something like a plan for reaching it,” and his goal is to persuade “readers on the radical left” that there is something at stake for them in “an extended discussion of matters literary, aesthetic, and methodological” (viii, ix, x). Or, rather, his goal is to persuade both readers on the left and “readers within and around academic literary studies” that their interests align: that the “materialist account of the aesthetic” at the root of close reading is “properly understood as part of a longer history of resistance to the economic, political, and cultural systems that prevent us from cultivating deeper modes of life” (x).

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Kirk A. Denton
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Museum Exhibitions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Japanese Colonial

The introduction first outlines the importance of historical memory and museums to Taiwan’s post-martial law political culture and its emergent democracy. It then establishes a narratological methodology centered on close reading of museum exhibitions and the political implications of those exhibitions. Finally, it offers an overview of the history of museum development in Taiwan, from the Japanese colonial era to the present.

scholarly journals „Obok. Polska – Niemcy. 1000 lat historii w sztuce” jako przykład wystawy politycznej

2018 ◽  
pp. 163-176
Author(s):  
Magdalena Lorenc
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Art Exhibitions ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
The Eu

The objective of the paper is to analyze and assess the institutional conditions of the exhibition entitled Side by Side. Poland – Germany. 1000 years of Art and History, organized in Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin between September 23, 2011 and January 9, 2012. In terms of the number of works of art presented this undertaking was unprecedented in the history of Polish- German relations. The exhibition, and the catalogue that accompanied it, were a part of the Cultural Program of the Polish Presidency in the EU Council in 2011, becoming an exemplification of the issue of the politicization of exhibition discourse, where works of art are utilized for political purposes. The theoretical inspiration for considering this topic was provided by Peter Vergo’s concept presented in his text The reticent object of 1987. In Vergo’s opinion, exhibitions are a cultural fact which is relatively rarely investigated in terms of the means, efforts, conditions and reasons that are necessary for their execution. And yet these institutional conditions, including their financing, the procedures for selecting the entities in charge of the project, the mechanisms for appoint the program board and honorary patronage have a considerable influence on the nature of the exhibition. Concentrating on institutional contexts serves the purpose of answering the question of how the realms of politics and art exhibitions permeate one another. The decisions made by the authorities to become involved in certain exhibition projects constitute the instruments for creating and executing selected public policies, primarily cultural policy. It is therefore impossible to assess the success of a given initiative without considering the political objectives set and achieved by the organizers of the exhibition Side by Side.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

Essays of a “comparatively progressive” economist (On the 150th birth anniversary of Vladimir Geleznoff)

2019 ◽  
pp. 135-145
Author(s):  
Viktor A. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Working Ability ◽  
Intellectual Inquiry ◽  
History Of

Deep comprehension of the advanced economic theory, the talent of lecturer enforced by the outstanding working ability forwarded Vladimir Geleznoff scarcely at the end of his thirties to prepare the publication of “The essays of the political economy” (1898). The subsequent publishing success (8 editions in Russia, the 1918­-year edition in Germany) sufficiently demonstrates that Geleznoff well succeded in meeting the intellectual inquiry of the cross­road epoch of the Russian history and by that taking the worthful place in the history of economic thought in Russia. Being an acknowledged historian of science V. Geleznoff was the first and up to now one of the few to demonstrate the worldwide community of economists the theoretically saturated view of Russian economic thought in its most fruitful period (end of XIX — first quarter of XX century).

The Triumph of Olemaun: Survivance, Empathic Unsettlement, and Restorying the History of Canadian Residential Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-146
Author(s):  
Anah-Jayne Markland
Keyword(s):  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Mandatory Education ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Age Appropriate

The ignorance of many Canadians regarding residential schools and their traumatic legacy is emphasised in the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a foundational obstacle to achieving reconciliation. Many of the TRC's calls to action involve education that dispels and corrects this ignorance, and the commission demands ‘age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples' historical and contemporary contributions to Canada’ to be made ‘a mandatory education requirement for Kindergarten to Grade Twelve students’ (Calls to Action 62.i). How to incorporate the history of residential schools in kindergarten and early elementary curricula has been much discussed, and one tool gaining traction is Indigenous-authored picturebooks about Canadian residential schools. This article conducts a close reading of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton's picturebook When I Was Eight (2013). The picturebook gathers Indigenous and settler children together to contest master settler narratives regarding the history of residential schools. Using Gerald Vizenor's concept of ‘survivance’ and Dominick LaCapra's notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, the article argues that picturebooks work to unsettle young readers empathetically as part of restorying settler myths about residential schools and implicating young readers in the work of reconciliation.

A Confrontation between Two Doctrines: The Birth of Struggle for Hegemony in Hebrew Children's Literature during the 1930s and 1940s

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
YAEL DARR
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Single Channel ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literary Creation ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Level ◽  
First Time ◽  
Literary Quality

This article describes a crucial and fundamental stage in the transformation of Hebrew children's literature, during the late 1930s and 1940s, from a single channel of expression to a multi-layered polyphony of models and voices. It claims that for the first time in the history of Hebrew children's literature there took place a doctrinal confrontation between two groups of taste-makers. The article outlines the pedagogical and ideological designs of traditionalist Zionist educators, and suggests how these were challenged by a group of prominent writers of adult poetry, members of the Modernist movement. These writers, it is argued, advocated autonomous literary creation, and insisted on a high level of literary quality. Their intervention not only dramatically changed the repertoire of Hebrew children's literature, but also the rules of literary discourse. The article suggests that, through the Modernists’ polemical efforts, Hebrew children's literature was able to free itself from its position as an apparatus controlled by the political-educational system and to become a dynamic and multi-layered field.

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