Modernism's Other Work

The Art Object's Political Life

Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, Art History, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book Modernism's Other Work by Lisa Siraganian, Oxford University Press
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Author: Lisa Siraganian ISBN: 9780190208547
Publisher: Oxford University Press Publication: January 12, 2012
Imprint: Oxford University Press Language: English
Author: Lisa Siraganian
ISBN: 9780190208547
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication: January 12, 2012
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Language: English

Modernism's Other Work challenges deeply held critical beliefs about the meaning-in particular the political meaning-of modernism's commitment to the work of art as an object detached from the world. Ranging over works of poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture, and film, it argues that modernism's core aesthetic problem-the artwork's status as an object, and a subject's relation to it-poses fundamental questions of agency, freedom, and politics. With fresh accounts of works by canonical figures such as William Carlos Williams and Marcel Duchamp, and transformative readings of less-studied writers such as William Gaddis and Amiri Baraka, Siraganian reinterprets the relationship between aesthetic autonomy and politics. Through attentive readings, the study reveals how political questions have always been modernism's critical work, even when writers such as Gertrude Stein and Wyndham Lewis boldly assert the art object's immunity from the world's interpretations. Reorienting our understanding of the period, Siraganian demonstrates that the freedom of the art object from the reader's meaning presented a way to imagine an individual's complicated liberty within the state. Offering readers an original encounter with modernism, Modernism's Other Work will interest literary and art historians, literary theorists, critics, and scholars in cultural studies.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Modernism's Other Work challenges deeply held critical beliefs about the meaning-in particular the political meaning-of modernism's commitment to the work of art as an object detached from the world. Ranging over works of poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture, and film, it argues that modernism's core aesthetic problem-the artwork's status as an object, and a subject's relation to it-poses fundamental questions of agency, freedom, and politics. With fresh accounts of works by canonical figures such as William Carlos Williams and Marcel Duchamp, and transformative readings of less-studied writers such as William Gaddis and Amiri Baraka, Siraganian reinterprets the relationship between aesthetic autonomy and politics. Through attentive readings, the study reveals how political questions have always been modernism's critical work, even when writers such as Gertrude Stein and Wyndham Lewis boldly assert the art object's immunity from the world's interpretations. Reorienting our understanding of the period, Siraganian demonstrates that the freedom of the art object from the reader's meaning presented a way to imagine an individual's complicated liberty within the state. Offering readers an original encounter with modernism, Modernism's Other Work will interest literary and art historians, literary theorists, critics, and scholars in cultural studies.

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