The Gender of Modernity

by Rita Felski

In an innovative and invigorating exploration of the complex relations between women and the modern, Rita Felski challenges conventional male-centered theories of modernity. She also calls into question those feminist perspectives that have either demonized the modern as inherently patriarchal, or else assumed a simple opposition between men’s and women’s experiences of the modern world.

Combining cultural history with cultural theory, and focusing on the fin de siècle , Felski examines the gendered meanings of such notions as nostalgia, consumption, feminine writing, the popular sublime, evolution, revolution, and perversion. Her approach is comparative and interdisciplinary, covering a wide variety of texts from the English, French, and German sociological theory, realist and naturalist novels, decadent literature, political essays and speeches, sexological discourse, and sentimental popular fiction. Male and female writers from Simmel, Zola, Sacher-Masoch, and Rachilde to Marie Corelli, Wilde, and Olive Schreiner come under Felski’s scrutiny as she exposes the varied and often contradictory connections between femininity and modernity.

Seen through the lens of Felski’s discerning eye, the last fin de siècle provides illuminating parallels with our own. And Felski’s keen analysis of the matrix of modernism offers needed insight into the sense of cultural crisis brought on by postmodernism.

Genres: Feminism, Gender, Theory, Nonfiction, Gender Studies, History, Criticism

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 1995

About the author

Rita Felski is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at the University of Virginia, and editor of New Literary History. Felski is a prominent scholar in the fields of aesthetics and literary theory, feminist theory, modernity and postmodernity, and cultural studies.

Felski received an honors degree in French and German literature from Cambridge University and her PhD from the Department of German at Monash University in Australia. Before coming to the University of Virginia in 1994, she taught in the Program for English and Comparative Literature at Murdoch University in Perth. She served as Chair of the Comparative Literature Program at Virginia from 2004 to 2008.

From 2003-2007 Felski served as U.S. editor of Feminist Theory. She has also served on the editorial boards of Modernism/Modernity, Modern Fiction Studies, The International Journal of Cultural Studies, Criticism, and Echo: A Music-Centered Journal. Her work has been translated into Korean, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Italian, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazingly clear and nuanced book. Highly recommended for anyone working on late 19th century lit to present, or anyone who has ever frantically Googled "what is modernity." Felski is my new academic crush.

[Kristin Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am always impressed by books that claim to make a large scale intervention and follow through on that promise. So much good stuff here I'll definitely return to it often. Also, new record for how many times "always already" occurs in a monograph?

[fei]

Read the introduction, the chapter on consumerism ("Imagined Pleasures: The Erotics and Aesthetics of Consumption") and the part of "Love, God, and the Orient: Reading the Popular Sublime" which focused on the Orient in the modern European imagination.

[Ke]

第一本读完了但是不愿意打分的书籍。第一遍通读感觉掌握了大约30、40%的内容。会把作者具体介绍的书籍读完，再来重新啃这本书。
内容联系到了之前读到的hysteria，并介绍了当时的时代背景，作家们都愿意把自己归类为歇斯底里派。还提及了女性角色通过勾引男性，掌握对自己身体的控制权，联想到东京电力的女职员在工作之余卖春。

[Angela Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good example of feminist criticism

[Chaniya Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring!!! So many points to scrutinise and extend!