A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American LiteratureUniversity of Chicago Press, 2003 - 245 Seiten In May 1906, the Atlantic Monthly commented that Americans live not merely in an age of things, but under the tyranny of them, and that in our relentless effort to sell, purchase, and accumulate things, we do not possess them as much as they possess us. For Bill Brown, the tale of that possession is something stranger than the history of a culture of consumption. It is the story of Americans using things to think about themselves. Brown's captivating new study explores the roots of modern America's fascination with things and the problem that objects posed for American literature at the turn of the century. This was an era when the invention, production, distribution, and consumption of things suddenly came to define a national culture. Brown shows how crucial novels of the time made things not a solution to problems, but problems in their own right. Writers such as Mark Twain, Frank Norris, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Henry James ask why and how we use objects to make meaning, to make or remake ourselves, to organize our anxieties and affections, to sublimate our fears, and to shape our wildest dreams. Offering a remarkably new way to think about materialism, A Sense of Things will be essential reading for anyone interested in American literature and culture. |
Inhalt
INTRODUCTION THE IDEA OF THINGS AND THE IDEAS IN THEM | 1 |
ONE THE TYRANNY OF THINGS | 21 |
TWO THE NATURE OF THINGS | 51 |
THREE REGIONAL ARTIFACTS | 81 |
FOUR THE DECORATION OF HOUSES | 136 |
MODERNITY AND MODERNISM | 177 |
Notes | 189 |
237 | |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature Bill Brown Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2010 |
A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature Bill Brown Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2003 |
A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature Bill Brown Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2003 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
aesthetic American Scene animate anthropology argued artifacts Balzac beauty become Benjamin Cambridge Capital Cather chapter character Chicago Press collection commodity fetishism consciousness Criticism decorating describes Dunnet effort epistemology Essays exhibit Exposition fiction figure Fleda Frank Norris Gereth gold Golden Bowl habit Harvard University Press Henry James hereafter cited parenthetically human ideas imagine inanimate Indian iterative James's Jewett John Singer Sargent kind Library of America life-group literary lives Lukács Maggie Mark Twain Marx Marx's Mass material objects McTeague meant mode modernism modernist narrative narrator nature nonetheless Norris Norris's novel painting Paul Strand physical object world Pointed Firs possession Prince psychological readers relation relics repetition Sarah Orne Jewett Sargent seal seems sense social Spoils of Poynton story things thinking thought tion trans Trina ture understanding University of Chicago Vandover Walter Benjamin Willa Cather William Carlos Williams writing York
Verweise auf dieses Buch
South Pacific Museums: Experiments in Culture Chris Healy,Andrea Witcomb Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2006 |