Modernist Work: Labor, Aesthetics, and the Work of Art

(Paperback)

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Through a wide-ranging selection of essays representing a variety of different media, national contexts and critical approaches, this volume provides a broad overview of the idea of work in modernism, considered in its aesthetic, theoretical, historical and political dimensions. Several individual chapters discuss canonical figures, including Richard Strauss, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka and Gertrude Stein, but Modernist Work also addresses contexts that are chronologically and geographically foreign to the main stream of modernist studies, such as Swedish proletarian writing, Haitian nationalism and South African inheritors of Dada. Prominent historical themes include the ideas of class, revolution and the changing nature of women's work, while more conceptual chapters explore topics including autonomy, inheritance, intention, failure and intimacy. Modernist Work investigates an important but relatively neglected topic in modernist studies, demonstrating the central relevance of the concept of work to a diverse selection of writers and artists and opening up pathways for future research.

Reviews

The exemplary introduction ... effortlessly prepares the reader for the component essays - an impressive achievement, considering the range of approaches to work taken by the contributors. Essays are ordered thoughtfully, shading from those taking the most figurative sense of the term (concerning aesthetics or restricted to artistic labour alone) to those with its most material, politically energized connotations (concerning industrialism and class hierarchies). * The Year's Work in English Studies *
Building on a productive pun on the concept of 'work,' Modernist Work explores the intersection between the changing organization of labor practices at the turn of the 20th century and shifts in the conception of the modernist work of art. This stimulating and wide-ranging collection makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the social and material transformations of work that underpin, enter into, and are contested by modernist aesthetic practice. * John Frow, Professor of English, University of Sydney, Australia *
Modernist Work does what its title promises and puts the issue of labor back at the center of modernism studies. This enticing and stimulating collection of essays, bookended by a thorough introduction by John Attridge and a provocative afterword by Morag Shiach, tackles artistic labor and the work of art, but it also studies the modernist representation of labor(ers) and modernisms vexed relation to class. This book will be invaluable reading to all those interested in the work, and play, of modernism. * Sascha Bru, Associate Professor of General and Comparative Literature, University of Leuven, Belgium *
Modernist Work provides an important, incisive, and theoretically engaging corrective to the narrow periodization and post-critical hoopla afoot in modernist studies. The collection shows that work--in all its different senses, across many disciplines, engaged from a range of perspectives--is a key word for unlocking and understanding modernism's riddled aesthetic legacies. * Aaron Jaffe, Frances Cushing Ervin Professor of English, Florida State University, USA *

Author Bio

John Attridge is Senior Lecturer in English in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Helen Rydstrand received her PhD from the University of New South Wales in 2016. Her first book, Rhythmic Modernism: Mimesis and the Short Story, was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.