Cultural Production and the Politics of Women’s Work in American Literature and Film

Polina Kroik holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on gender, work, and migration in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and film. She has presented at numerous national conferences and contributed to peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Kroik teaches literature and writing at Fordham University and Baruch College, CUNY.

• Introduction, 1 Mixing Business with Pleasure: The "Business Girl" and the Rise of Fordism in Sinclair Lewis’s ‘The Job’ and Winston Churchill’s ‘The Dwelling-Place of Light’, 2 Flappers and Professionals: The Cultural Politics of Edith Wharton’s Later Fiction, 3 "Beggars in Velvet Gowns:" The Politics of Work, Race, and Class in Nella Larsen’s Fiction, 4 "A Girl Can’t Go on Laughing All the Time" Anita Loos and the Hollywood Studio System, 5 "I Guess You Could Say I’ve a Call": Work, Gender and Class in Sylvia Plath’s Fiction and Poetry, Conclusion: The Neoliberal Office, Postfeminism in Mad Men, and the Rise of the Gig Economy

Polina Kroik's smart, nuanced analysis of women's clerical work in fiction and film expands our views of Fordism, modernism, and indeed the modern workplace. She takes a fresh look at both canonical and lesser-known works by Sinclair Lewis, Edith Wharton, Nella Larsen, Anita Loos, and Sylvia Plath, revealing the relationship between the gendered nature of office work and the gendered nature of cultural production in the first six decades of the 20th century. Significantly, she extends this analysis to the contemporary workplace, arguing persuasively that the gender inequity and gender expectations reflected in modernist works and in pre-1970s workplaces continues into the 21st century, even as women have moved into new roles and technology has transformed the very spaces in which we work. Her emphasis on affective labor and the ways in which it is rendered invisible and undervalued is as relevant to the early 20th century workplace as it is to today's gig economy. Kathlene McDonald, CUNY Center for Worker Education"Polina Kroik has achieved a rare feat in this exciting new book by constructing a fresh account of American Modernism that grapples with the gendering of class and work. Kroik’s argument combines a broad historical reach with incisive analyzes of a rich array of cultural texts, exposing how gender and race mediate the intelligibility of cultural production and producers."Alyson Cole, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY