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Contemporary novelists and the aesthetics of twenty-first century American life / by Alexandra Kingston-Reese.
Van Pelt Library PS374.A76 K56 2020
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Kingston-Reese, Alexandra, 1989- author.
- Series:
- New American canon
- The new American canon : the Iowa series in contemporary literature and culture
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- American fiction--21st century--History and criticism.
- American fiction.
- Art and literature--United States.
- Art and literature.
- Cognitive dissonance in literature.
- Affect (Psychology) in literature.
- Realism in literature.
- Life in literature.
- Literature--Psychology.
- Literature.
- Literature, Experimental--United States--History and criticism.
- Literature, Experimental.
- United States.
- Genre:
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Physical Description:
- xv, 200 pages ; 23 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, [2019]
- Summary:
- "Contemporary culture is full of anxiety. But what happens when art, which usually purports to soothe us, actually disturbs us? What affective distortions do aesthetic experiences afford us when solace isn't the ultimate ambition? What happens when art fails, or when we fail to engage with art? When aesthetic experience negates the profound, verges on the automatic, and is troubled by dissonant feelings? Contemporary Novelists and the Aesthetics of Twenty-First Century American Life explores how the contemporary novel is increasingly shifting the way we think about art's effects on us to illuminate how novelistic mediations of and meditations on aesthetic experience are enriched by a paradoxical concern with the ineffability and inexpressibility of personal and communal losses or disasters. Reading alongside key practitioners in contemporary fiction and art criticism, including Teju Cole, Jennifer Egan, Sheila Heti, Siri Hustvedt, Chris Kraus, Ben Lerner, and Zadie Smith, Alexandra Kingston-Reese suggests a rip away from contentment, comfort, and habit through five modes of against--as slant rhymes, afterimage, transcription, synaesthesia, and suspension--which capture not only affective dissonance, but formal experimentation"-- Provided by publisher.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Other Format:
- Online version: Kingston-Reese, Alexandra, 1989- Contemporary novelists and the aesthetics of twenty-first century American life
- ISBN:
- 9781609386757
- 1609386752
- OCLC:
- 1102468499
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