Before Modernism Was Modern History and the Constituency of Writing [Hardcover]

Before Modernism Was places modernist writing within the texture of modern history. Texts by Woolf, James, Freud, Wyndham Lewis, Stein, Malinowski, and others are read through a range of figures that construct and disrupt modern meaning: the ghost that affects the value of your property; the sulky, graceless adolescent; the Pole who may not be Polish; the nervous owner of the dog; the addict and her smoke. Eccentric to its institutions, these figures are central to the constituency of modernism.Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Modern History and the Disavowal of Possibility Property: The Preoccupation of Modernism Boys: Manufacturing Inefficiency Poles: The Centre of Europe Dogs: Small Domestic Forms Smoke: Craving History Notes Bibliography IndexGEOFF GILBERT is Associate Professor and Chair of Comparative Literature and English at the American University of Paris. He writes about and teaches modernism, European fiction, cultural studies, and sexuality.