Modernism and Theory: A Critical Debate

288 Pages·2008·2.3 MB·English

by  Stephen Ross

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Modernism and Theory
Modernism and Theory boldly asks what role—if any—theory has to play in the new modernist studies. Separated into
three sections, each with a clear introduction, this collection of new essays from leading critics outlines ongoing debates
on the nature of modernist culture.
This collection
• examines aesthetic and methodological links between modernist literature and theory;
• addresses questions of the importance of theory to our understanding of ‘modernism’ and of modernism as a literary
category;
• considers intersections of modernism and theory within ethics, ecocriticism and the avant-garde.
Concluding with an afterword from Fredric Jameson, the book makes use of an innovative dialogic format, offering a
direct and engaging experience of the current debates in modernist studies.
Stephen Ross is Associate Professor of English and Cultural, Social, and Political Thought at the University of Victoria,
where he teaches courses in modernism and theory. He is author of Conrad and Empire (University of Missouri Press,
2004), as well as numerous articles on modernism.
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Modernism and Theory
A critical debate
Edited by
Stephen Ross

LONDON AND NEW YORK
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First edition published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please
go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2009 Stephen Ross for selection and editorial matter; individual
chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Modernism and theory : a critical debate / edited by Stephen Ross. –
1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Modernism (Literature) 2. Modernism (Aesthetics) I. Ross,
Stephen, 1970–
PN56.M54M613 2008
700¢.4112–
dc22 2008011223
ISBN 0-203-87086-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 978-0-415-46156-6 (hbk)
ISBN 978-0-415-46157-3 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-203-09110-4 (ebk)
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Contents

Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: The missing link 1
STEPHEN ROSS

PART I Theory’s modernism: concrete connections 19
1 Rip the veil of the old vision across, and walk through the rent: thinking through affect in D. H. Lawrence and 23
Deleuze and Guattari
ANNELEEN MASSCHELEIN
Deleuze and his sources Response to Anneleen Masschelein 40
IAN BUCHANAN
2 Modernism, postmodernism, and the two sublimes of surrealism 49
ROGER ROTHMAN
The two sublimes, fourth time around Response to Roger Rothman 60
ALLAN STOEKL
3 “What true project has been lost?” Modern art and Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life 65
THOMAS S. DAVIS
Disdained everyday fields Response to Thomas S. Davis 80
BEN HIGHMORE
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4 Time and its countermeasures: modern messianisms in Woolf, Benjamin, and Agamben 86
HILARY THOMPSON
Time’s exception Response to Hilary Thompson 99
PAMELA CAUGHIE

PART II Modernism’s theory: abstract affiliations 113
5 The persistence of the old regime: late modernist form in the postmodern period 117
NEIL LEVI
In the time of theory, the timeliness of modernism Response to Neil Levi 127
GLENN WILLMOTT
6 Invisible times: modernism as ruptural unity 137
C. D. BLANTON
More than a hint of desperation – historicizing modernism Response to C. D. Blanton 153
MORAG SHIACH
7 “This new evolution of art”: Adorno’s modernism as a re-orientation of aesthetics 156
OLEG GELIKMAN
What’s new? On Adorno and the modernist aesthetics of novelty Response to Oleg Gelikman 171
MARTIN JAY
8 Fables of progression: modernism, modernity, narrative 176
ANDREW JOHN MILLER
Modernism and the moment of defeat Response to Andrew John Miller 190
SCOTT MCCRACKEN
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PART III Forum 195
9 Aesthetics 197
CHARLES F. LTIERI
10 Ethics 208
MELBA CUDDY-KEANE
11 Green 219
BONNIE KIME SCOTT
12 Avant-garde 225
JANE GOLDMAN
13 Theory 237
SUSAN STANFORD FRIEDMAN
Afterword 247
FREDRIC JAMESON

Index 253
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Contributors
Charles F. Altieri is Stageberg Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published a
number of books, including Postmodernism Now: Essays on Contemporaneity in the Arts (1998) and The Particulars of
Rapture: An Aesthetic of Affects (2003).
C. D. Blanton is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He writes on modernism and
modern poetry generally, and has co-edited Pocket Epics: British Poetry after Modernism and A Blackwell Companion
to Post-War British and Irish Poetry. He is currently working on late modernist long forms.
Ian Buchanan is Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University. His books include Fredric Jameson:
Live Theory (2007), and Deleuzism (2000). He has published widely on the work of Deleuze, de Certeau and Jameson,
and is founding editor of Deleuze Studies.
Pamela Caughie is Professor of English at Loyola University, Chicago. Her published books include Passing and
Pedagogy (1999), Virginia Woolf and Postmodernism (1991), and, as editor, Virginia Woolf in the Age of Mechanical
Reproductions. Her articles have appeared in PMLA, Differences, and Modernism/ Modernity, among others.
Melba Cuddy-Keane is Professor of English and a Northrop Frye Scholar at the University of Toronto. She has
published widely on modernism, globalism, narrative, and culture, including the acclaimed volume Virginia Woolf, the
Intellectual and the Public Sphere (2003) and the Harcourt annotated edition of Between the Acts (2008).
Thomas S. Davis is an Assistant Professor of English at the Ohio State University. His research interests include literary
modernism, philosophical aesthetics, and political theory. He is currently working on a book project entitled “Distressed
Histories: Late Modernism and Everyday Life, 1929–1945.”
Susan Stanford Friedman is Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, co-editor of the journal Contemporary Women’s Writing, and author of Mappings: Feminism and the
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Cultural Geographies of Encounter (1998), books on H. D. and Joyce, and articles on modernism, diaspora, feminism,
and world literature.
Oleg Gelikman is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at the Soka University of America. He has published
articles and reviews in journals such as Angelaki, boundary2, PMLA, and Modern Language Notes.
Jane Goldman is Reader in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, and General Editor of the Cambridge
University Press Edition of The Writings of Virginia Woolf. She has published a number of works on Woolf and on
modernism, including Modernism, 1910–1945: Image to Apocalypse (2004) and Modernism: An Anthology of Sources
and Documents (1998).
Ben Highmore is Reader in Media Studies at the University of Sussex. His research concerns the culture of daily life,
and his published books include Cityscapes (2005), Michel de Certeau (2002), and Everyday Life and Cultural Theory:
An Introduction (2002). He is presently at work on a project entitled A Passion for Cultural Studies.
Fredric Jameson is the William A. Lane Jr. Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies at Duke
University, where he directs the Institute for Critical Theory. Author of Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism (Duke University Press, 1991) and A Singular Modernity (Verso, 2002), his most recent works include
Archeologies of the Future (Verso, 2005) and The Modernist Papers (Verso, 2007).
Martin Jay is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His published
works include Cultural Semantics (1998), Refractions of Violence (2003), and Songs of Experience (2004). Professor
Jay’s books have been widely translated, appearing in over fourteen languages worldwide.
Neil Levi is Associate Professor of English at Drew University. He is co-editor (with Michael Rothberg) of The
Holocaust: Theoretical Readings (2003) and has published articles in such journals in October, New German Critique,
and History & Memory. His book Modernism, Dirt, and the Jews is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.
Scott McCracken is Professor of English at Keele University in Staffordshire. His main research areas are literature and
culture 1880–1920, modernism, gender, critical theory, and popular fiction. His most recent publication is Masculinities,
Modernist Fiction and the Urban Public Sphere (Manchester University Press, 2007).
Anneleen Masschelein is Professor of Literary Theory at K. U. Leuven and Postdoctoral Fellow at FWO-Vlaanderen,
both in Belgium. She is author of The Unconcept (2008) and co-editor for the journal Image and Narrative.
Andrew John Miller is Associate Professor of English Studies at the Université de Montréal. He is author of
Modernism and the Crisis of Sovereignty (2008), and also
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