Abstraction in Modernism and Modernity

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.