Mixed feelings : feminism, mass culture, and Victorian sensationalism / Ann Cvetkovich.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cvetkovich, Ann, 1957-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Feminism and literature--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Feminism and literature.

Women and literature--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Women and literature.

Sensationalism in literature.

Popular culture--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Popular culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 227 p. )

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c1992.

Summary:

Arguing that affect has a history, Ann Cvetkovich challenges both nineteenth- and twentieth-century claims that the expression of feeling is naturally or intrinsically liberating or reactionary. The central focus of Mixed Feelings is the Victorian sensation novel, the fad genre of the 1860s, whose controversial popularity marks an important moment in the history of mass culture. Drawing on Marxist, feminist, and Foucauldian cultural theory, Cvetkovich investigates the sensation novel's power to produce emotional responses, its representation of social problems as affective ones, and the difficulties involved in assessing the genre as either reactionary or subversive. She is particularly concerned with the relation of gender and affect since many of the sensation novels were written by and for women, and women. By examining the powerful conjunction of ideologies of affect, gender, and mass culture, Cvetkovich reveals the powerful political effects of affective expression and sensational representations.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Politics of Affect

One. Marketing Affect: The Nineteenth-Century Sensation Novel

Two. Theorizing Affect: Twentieth-Century Mass Culture Criticism

Three. Detective in the House: Subversion and Containment in 45 Lady Audley's Secret

Four. Ghostlier Determinations: The Economy of Sensation and The Woman in White

Five. Crying for Power: East Lynne and Maternal Melodrama

Six. The Inside Story: On Sympathy in Daniel Deronda

Seven. Marx's Capital and the Mystery of the Commodity

Epilogue

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-222) and index.

ISBN:

0-8135-8292-X

0-585-02262-3