Feminist aesthetics and the politics of modernism

282 Pages·2012·1.37 MB·English

by  Ziarek

“Feminist Aesthetics and the Politics of Modernism is a brilliant, unique, and original work. Ewa Ziarek’s Z
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sensitive and critical analysis of the ‘multiple possibilities of what literature and femininity might a
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mean and might become’ asks us to rethink the ways in which the relations between aesthetics and e
politics, race and critical theory, feminism and modernism have been commonly understood. This k e wa
vital and valuable book demonstrates how from literature written by white and black women new f
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forms of knowledge, transformation, and aesthetic possibility can emerge, and new kinds of political e
and psychic sensibility.” DaviD Marriott, author of Haunted Life: Visual Culture and Black Modernity m
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“An impressive display of erudition and incisive analysis. An absolutely original and brilliantly con-
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“In her rich, persuasive, and provocative new book, Ewa Ziarek moves between Virginia Woolf and a
Nella Larsen, negotiates between Theodor Adorno and feminist theory, plays off Giorgio Agamben e
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and Jacques Rancière against Julia Kristeva and Rita Felski, to develop one central argument: that, to
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paraphrase Karl Marx, whereas aestheticians have only interpreted the world, now the time has come c
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to change it, and this will happen when the revolutionary potential of art is unleashed by allying itself e
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“Feminist Aesthetics and the Politics of Modernism reminds us that modernism provided the context for e: © c aesthetics
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an unprecedented engagement by black and women writers. But Ewa Ziarek’s elegant readings of a
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Nella Larson and Virginia Woolf form just a part of her complex and groundbreaking case for a new lin a
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means of integrating aesthetic and political theory. From Adorno to Arendt and Agamben, she recon- lo
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Through her innovative approach, Adorno and Agamben undergo not commentary nor critique but a, P t
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a compelling and surprising transformation—as when they become resources for revisiting the hun- rty h politics of
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ewa Ziarek is Julian Park Professor of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York, c o
Buffalo. She is the author of An Ethics of Dissensus: Feminism, Postmodernity, and the Politics of Radical ov d
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Democracy and coeditor of Revolt, Affect, Collectivity: The Unstable Boundaries of Kristeva’s Polis and Inter- r d e
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feminist aesthetics and
the politics of modernism

feminist aesthetics and
the politics of modernism
Ewa Płonowska Ziarek
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2012 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ziarek, Ewa Plonowska, 1961–
Feminist aesthetics and the politics of modernism /
Ewa Plonowska Ziarek.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16148-0 (cloth: alk. paper)—ISBN
978-0-231-16149-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN
978-0-231-53090-3 (e-book)
1. Feminist criticism. 2. Aesthetics. 3. Moder-
nism (Aesthetics) 4. Feminist theory. I. Title
HQ1190.Z556 2012 2012006808
305.4201—dc23

Columbia University Press books are printed on
permanent and durable acid-free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were
accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author
nor Columbia University Press is responsible for
URLs that may have expired or changed since the
manuscript was prepared.
For Halina Płonowska and Łukasz Ziarek

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction: On Loss, Invention, and the Dilemmas of
Feminist Aesthetics 1
I. Revolutionary Praxis and Its Melancholic Impasses
1. On Suff rage Militancy and Modernism:
Femininity and Revolt 19
2. Melancholia, Death of Art, and Women’s Writing 51
3. Woolf’s Aesthetics of Potentiality 86
II. Female Bodies, Violence, and Form
Introduction: Rethinking the Form/Matter Divide in Feminist
Politics and Aesthetics 123
4. Abstract Commodity Form and Bare Life 128
viii contents
5. Damaged Materialities in Political Struggles and Aesthetic
Innovations 157
III. Toward a Feminine Aesthetics of Renaissance
6. The Enigma of Nella Larsen: Letters, Curse, and Black
Laughter 193
Notes 229
Index 251
Acknowledgments
I t is my pleasure to acknowledge many colleagues and friends
who read or discussed various parts of my book. I am indebted to Kalliopi
Nikolopoulou, Devonya N. Havis, Alison Ross, Andrew Benjamin, Barbara
Green, Kelly Oliver, Elizabeth Presa, and Krzysztof Ziarek for their helpful
comments, suggestions, and support. I am especially grateful to Penel-
ope Deutscher and Graham Hammill, who read the manuscript in its en-
tirety and off ered invaluable suggestions for revisions. I would like to thank
the anonymous reviewers of Columbia University Press for their thought-
ful engagement with my work and Wendy Lochner for her patience and
support of this project. I am especially grateful to James Kurt for his expert
help in the fi nal preparation of the manuscript for production.
M y mother Halina Płonowska’s help and support was invaluable in
the last stages of the manuscript preparation . Conversations with my
son, Łukasz, about his dissertation was a source of loving companion-
ship and inspiration for my own work. Krzysztof’s patience, support, and
intellectual insights made it a better book.
Earlier versions of several sections of this book have already appeared in
print and I am grateful for permissions to use these materials in their
revised form: