The gender of modernity / Rita Felski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Felski, Rita, 1956-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feminist theory.

Civilization, Modern--19th century.

Civilization, Modern.

Civilization, Modern--20th century.

Women and literature.

Women in literature.

Feminist criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995.

Summary:

In an exploration of the complex relations between women and the modern, this work challenges conventional male-centred theories of modernity. It examines the gendered meanings of such notions as nostalgia, consumption, feminine writing, the popular sublime, evolution, revolution and perversion.

In an innovative and invigorating exploration of the complex relations between women and the modern, Rita Felski challenges conventional male-centered theories of modernity. She also calls into question those feminist perspectives that have either demonized the modern as inherently patriarchal, or else assumed a simple opposition between men's and women's experiences of the modern world. Combining cultural history with cultural theory, and focusing on the fin de siecle, Felski examines the gendered meanings of such notions as nostalgia, consumption, feminine writing, the popular sublime, evolution, revolution, and perversion. Her approach is comparative and interdisciplinary, covering a wide variety of texts from the English, French, and German traditions: sociological theory, realist and naturalist novels, decadent literature, political essays and speeches, sexological discourse, and sentimental popular fiction. Male and female writers from Simmel, Zola, Sacher-Masoch, and Rachilde to Marie Corelli, Wilde, and Olive Schreiner come under Felski's scrutiny as she exposes the varied and often contradictory connections between femininity and modernity. Seen through the lens of Felski's discerning eye, the last fin de siecle provides illuminating parallels with our own. And Felski's keen analysis of the matrix of modernism offers needed insight into the sense of cultural crisis brought on by postmodernism.

Contents:

Introduction - myths of the modern; modernity and feminism; on nostalgia - the prehistoric woman; imagined pleasures - the erotics and aesthetics of consumption; masking masculinity - the feminization of writing; love, God, and the Orient - reading the popular sublime; visions of the new - feminist discourses of evolution and revolution; the art of perversion - female sadists and male cyborgs; afterword - rewriting the modern.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-240) and index.

ISBN:

9780674263383

0674263383

9780674036796

0674036794

OCLC:

923112093