The End of Modernism: Elias Canetti's "Auto-da-Fé"

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Collins Donahue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
Considerable Body

Nobel laureate Elias Canetti wrote his novel Auto-da-Fé (Die Blendung) when he and the twentieth century were still quite young. Rooted in the cultural crises of the Weimar period, Auto-da-Fé first received critical acclaim abroad—in England, France, and the United States—where it continues to fascinate readers of subsequent generations. The End of Modernism places this work in its cultural and philosophical contexts, situating the novel not only in relation to Canetti's considerable body of social thought, but also within larger debates on Freud and Freudianism, misogyny and modernism's "fragmented subject" anti-Semitism and the failure of humanism, contemporary philosophy and philosophical fads, and traditionalist notions of literature and escapist conceptions of history. The End of Modernism portrays Auto-da-Fé as an exemplum of "analytic modernism," and in this sense a crucial endpoint in the progression of postwar conceptions of literary modernism.

scholarly journals The End of Modernism: Elias Canetti's "Auto-da-Fé"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Donahue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
Considerable Body

Nobel laureate Elias Canetti wrote his novel "Auto-da-Fé" ("Die Blendung") when he and the twentieth century were still quite young. Rooted in the cultural crises of the Weimar period, "Auto-da-Fé" first received critical acclaim abroad—in England, France, and the United States—where it continues to fascinate readers of subsequent generations. "The End of Modernism" places this work in its cultural and philosophical contexts, situating the novel not only in relation to Canetti's considerable body of social thought, but also within larger debates on Freud and Freudianism, misogyny and modernism's "fragmented subject," anti-Semitism and the failure of humanism, contemporary philosophy and philosophical fads, and traditionalist notions of literature and escapist conceptions of history. "The End of Modernism" portrays "Auto-da-Fé" as an exemplum of "analytic modernism," and in this sense a crucial endpoint in the progression of postwar conceptions of literary modernism.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Scott Parrish
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Media ◽  
Environmental Causes ◽  
The Way

This introductory chapter discusses the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It argues that although historians have uncovered the details of what caused the flood to unfold the way it did, less work has been done to explain how, what was arguably the most publicly consuming environmental catastrophe of the twentieth century in the United States, assumed public meaning. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore how this disaster took on form and meaning as it was nationally and internationally represented across multiple media platforms, both while the flood moved inexorably southward and, subsequently, over the next two decades. The book begins by looking at the social and environmental causes of the disaster, and by briefly describing the sociological certitudes of the 1920s into which it broke. It then investigates how this disaster went public, and made publics, as it was mediated through newspapers, radio, blues songs, and theater benefits. Finally, it looks at how the flood comprises an important chapter in the history of literary modernism.

Anti-Semitism

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-180
Author(s):  
John Corrigan ◽  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
History Nineteenth Century

This chapter highlights the prominent role that religion has played in nineteenth and twentieth century anti-Semitism. The diverse primary sources, ranging from photos and political cartoons to religious texts and newspaper articles, focus on five central moments in this history—nineteenth century Christian texts, the Leo Frank Case, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the “Summer of Hate” (1999), and Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. These documents help readers examine the ways Christian theology and, more recently, that of white supremacist religious groups, has fomented anti-Semitism in the United States.

Working from Home

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donal Harris
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Print Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Working From Home

Journalistically speaking … —DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, “Federer Both Flesh and Not” THIS BOOK HAS MADE A CASE FOR THE CENTRALITY OF journalism—its office cultures, professional protocols, and print media—in the development and reception of literary modernism in the United States over the first half of the twentieth century. It has tracked the two fields’ codependence from the migration of the staff system out of the newspapers and into muckraking magazines like ...

scholarly journals Making American Whiteness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tisa Wenger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Jews ◽  
American Life ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Faith Movement

This chapter explores the significance of religious freedom for American Jews, with particular attention to Jewish debates over Zionism and the emergence of the tri-faith movement in the early twentieth century. It argues that in an era of increasingly racialized anti-Semitism, American Jewish appeals for religious freedom both in the United States and abroad helped establish Jewishness as a primarily religious rather than racial identity in American life. In the process, religious freedom talk eased the access of American Jews to the racial status of whiteness in the United States.

The Insidious Momentum of American Mass Incarceration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franklin E. Zimring
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Single Generation ◽  
American Life ◽  
Peak Rate ◽  
Or Practice

The phenomenal growth of penal confinement in the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century is still a public policy mystery. Why did it happen when it happened? What explains the unprecedented magnitude of prison and jail expansion? Why are the current levels of penal confinement so very close to the all-time peak rate reached in 2007? What is the likely course of levels of penal confinement in the next generation of American life? Are there changes in government or policy that can avoid the prospect of mass incarceration as a chronic element of governance in the United States? This study is organized around four major concerns: What happened in the 33 years after 1973? Why did these extraordinary changes happen in that single generation? What is likely to happen to levels of penal confinement in the next three decades? What changes in law or practice might reduce this likely penal future?

Breaking Free

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre David
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Male Homosexuality ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
The Family

In the mid- to late 1950s, Pamela emerged as a critically acclaimed novelist, particularly after the family returned to London. In perhaps her best-known novel, The Unspeakable Skipton, she explores the life of a paranoid writer who sponges on English visitors to Bruges. The novel was hailed for its wit and sensitive depiction of the life of a writer. She also published a fine study of a London vicar martyred in marriage to a vain and selfish wife: The Humbler Creation is remarkable for its incisive and empathetic depiction of male despair. The Last Resort sealed her distinction as a brilliant novelist of domestic life in its frank depiction of male homosexuality. While continuing to publish fiction, Pamela maintained her reputation as a deft reviewer. In 1954, she and Charles travelled to the United States—the first of many trips that were to follow.

Orientalized Aztecs: Observations on the Americanization of Theatrical Dance

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-50
Author(s):  
K. Mitchell Snow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Policy ◽  
Ballets Russes

The opening decades of the twentieth century saw a passing fashion for “Aztec” dancing in the vaudeville theaters of the United States. Russian classical dancers Kosloff and Fokine tapped the orientalist currents of the Ballets Russes, adopting the Aztec as superficial signs of the American. Conversely, works by Shawn and film director Cecil B. DeMille, which served as points of reference for the Russians, represented a continuation of equally orientalist attitudes toward Mexico's past, forged during the realization of the United States’ policy of Manifest Destiny. The emergence of a cadre of trained dancers from Mexico, trained by students of Kosloff and Shawn, would bring a distinctively different perspective on the presentation of their heritage to the dance stage, one that was no longer based in the imagination of an expansionist America.

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