Beautiful Democracy: Aesthetics and Anarchy in a Global Era

302 Pages·2007·1.53 MB·English

by  Russ Castronovo

beautiful democracy

Russ Castronovo
beautiful democr acy
Aesthetics and Anarchy in a Global Era
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
russ castronovo
is the Jean Wall Bennett Professor of English and American
Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the coeditor of two collections,
and the author of two books, Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the Public Sphere
in the Nineteenth-Century United States and Fathering the Nation:
American Genealogies of Slavery and Freedom
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2007 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-09628-5 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-09629-2 (paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-09628-9 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0-226-09629-7 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Castronovo, Russ, 1965–
Beautiful democracy : aesthetics and anarchy in a global era / Russ Castronovo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-09628-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-09629-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-09628-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-09629-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Aesthetics, American. 2. Arts—United
States. 3. United States—Civilization. 4. Democracy—United States. I. Title.
bh221 .u53c37 2007
306.4’70973—dc22
2007003728
(cid:2)(cid:2) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
. . . the beauty of the everyday . . .
Maya, Julian, Leslie

contents
Illustrations . ix
Acknowledgments . xi
introduction
Aesthetics and the Anarchy of Global Culture . 1
The Cultured Few . 4 Aesthetics 101 . 8 The Popular Rage .18
Artwork Essays at the Antipodes . 22
. 1 .
flowers and billy clubs
The Beauty and Danger of Ethical Citizenship . 27
Beauty and Civic Identity . 30 Beauty and Science . 37
Beauty and Crowd Control . 45 Beauty and Danger . 55
. 2 .
american literature internationale
Translation, Strike, and the Time of Political Possibility . 65
Translating Aesthetics to the Common . 66
The Time of American Literature . 73 1877: The Time is Now . 82
Art for the Post-Revolution: Whitman and Santayana . 88
The Hazards of New Translation . 92 Novelists for (against?) Change . 104
. 3 .
beauty along the color line
Lynching, Form, and Aesthetics . 106
Aesthetics versus Art . 110 Aestheticizing Violence . 116
Organized Propaganda . 122 Gendering Aesthetics . 128
Alternative Aesthetics . 132
. 4 .
“bombs of laughter”
Motion Pictures, Mass Art, and Universal Language . 136
Classic Beauty for Modern Times . 141
Du Bois at the Movies: Ugliness, Endlessness, and Jim Crow . 152
The Sound of the Image: Chaplin and International Laughter . 157
Esperanto of the Eye: Anarchy and Internationalism . 173
. 5 .
geo-aesthetics
Fascism, Globalism, and Frank Norris . 180
Worldwide Unity and Formalism . 183 Art and Terror . 190
Literature “As Such” . 194 Geo-Aesthetics . 201
Postfascist Form . 209
Afterword . 213
Notes . 217
Works Cited . 255
Index . 271
illustrations
1. Jacob Riis, “Bottle Alley, Baxter Street” (ca. 1890) 44
2. “Poor Children among Flowers,” from Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous
Classes of New York, and Twenty Years’ Work among Them (1872) 45
3. Jacob Riis, “Five Cents a Spot: Unauthorized Lodgers in a Bayard Street
Tenement” (ca. 1890) 47
4. Jacob Riis, “Typical Toughs from the Rogues’ Gallery” (ca. 1890) 50
5. Jacob Riis, “Two Bowery Lodgers in Character, Practicing a Hold-Up”
(ca. 1890) 62
6. Jacob Riis, “Members of the Gang Showing How They ‘Did the Trick’ ”
(ca. 1890) 63
7. “Futile Attempt of the Mob” from Alan Pinkerton, Strikers, Communists,
Tramps, and Detectives (1878) 87
8. “Rioters Assaulting Soldiers” from Alan Pinkerton, Strikers, Communists,
Tramps, and Detectives (1878) 88
9. “Along the Color Line,” The Crisis (1914) 112
10. Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) 164
11. Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) 165
12. Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) 169
13. Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) 172
14. Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) 172
15. “Why Is It That the Wheat Never Looks So Good to the Lambs as When It Is
So High That It’s Dangerous?” Literary Digest 29 (1904) 182