Abstraction in Modernism and Modernity

Human and Inhuman

Inbunden, Engelska, 2023

Av Jeff Wallace, Cardiff Metropolitan University) Wallace, Jeff (Professor Emeritus, previously Professor of English

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Explores abstraction as a keyword in aesthetic modernism and in critical thinking since MarxAbstraction as the 'missing keyword' in Raymond WilliamsThe writing of abstraction in Marx and MarxismPaul C zanne and Barnett Newman compared as writer-artists of abstractionNew readings of abstraction and the inhuman in the experimental writing of Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens and Samuel BeckettA close study of Beckett's 'Proustian equation' and its role in a transformed thinking of abstractionAbstraction is one of the most important words in modernism and in the critical thought of modernity, yet its complex work is invariably hidden in plain sight. What do we want from abstraction? Does it refer to thought, or to art? Is it a term of reproach, or of affirmation? Beyond these distinctions, Jeff Wallace's new intellectual history of abstraction in modernism and modernity proposes that abstraction is always uniquely concerned with the importance and revaluation of the inhuman in and for the human. Wallace's case studies range across the writings of Raymond Williams and Paul Val ry, Marx and Marxist aesthetics, the discourse on abstract visual art in C zanne, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Newman, the literary experimentalisms of Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens and Samuel Beckett, and the twenty-first-century legacies of modernist abstraction in two forms: the post-Deleuzian resurgence of interest in the philosophies of William James, Henri Bergson and A. N. Whitehead; and the act of looking at the abstract canvas in plays by Yasmina Reza, John Logan and Lee Hall. Contrary to habitual associations of abstraction's difficulty with the exclusivity of high modernism, Wallace finds an inclusive and democratic impulse at the heart of the difficulty itself the promise of an abstraction for all.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2023-04-14
Mått156 x 234 x 22 mm
Vikt558 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieEdinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture
Antal sidor272
FörlagEdinburgh University Press
ISBN9781474461658

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Jeff Wallace is Professor Emeritus at Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of Beginning Modernism (Manchester University Press, 2011) and D. H. Lawrence, Science and the Posthuman (Palgrave, 2005) and of a range of writing that explores the relations between literature, science and philosophy from modernism to the contemporary, with an emphasis on theories of humanism, critical posthumanism and the inhuman. He is a specialist in D. H. Lawrence studies and has also co-edited volumes on Gothic Modernisms, Raymond Williams, and Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. He is a founding editor of the journal Key Words and currently co-edits the book series New Literary Theory for Routledge.

List of FiguresAbbreviationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I1. The missing keyword: Raymond Williams, Paul Valéry2. The force of abstraction: Marx and Marxism3. Abstract, “abstract”: modernist visual artPart II4. ‘If it can be done why do it’: Gertrude Stein5. ‘Resist the intelligence almost successfully’: Wallace Stevens6. ’The Proustian equation is never simple’: Samuel BeckettPart III7. Writing lived abstraction: James, Bergson, Whitehead and Deleuze8. Staging modernist abstraction: Yasmina Reza, John Logan, Lee HallConclusionBibliography

[Wallace] presents a serious and sustained study of how two types of abstraction—a way of thinking and a mode of artistic creation—become intimately involved. […] Abstraction in Modernism and Modernity first and foremost showcases Wallace’s skills as a literary critic and proponent of close reading. He proceeds through textual puzzles with patience, always pausing to revise key claims and ensure that he is taking his readers with him on what is a sometimes labyrinthine journey. His analysis is concrete and precise, allowing us to grasp the significance of abstraction even in its most evasive forms.