Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Community

by Jessica Berman

Overview

In this book, Jessica Berman claims that modernist fiction engages directly with early twentieth-century transformations of community and cosmopolitanism. Although modernist writers develop radically different models for social organization, their writings return again and again to issues of commonality and shared voice, particularly in relation to dominant discourses of gender and nationality. The writings of Henry James, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Stein not only inscribe early twentieth-century anxieties about race, ethnicity, nationality and gender, but confront them with demands for modern, cosmopolitan versions of community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521032995
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/18/2007
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.24(d)

About the Author

Jessica Berman is Assistant Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; Part I. Cosmopolitan Communities; Part II. Henry James: 1. 'The history of the voice': Cosmopolitan's America; 2. Feminizing the nation: woman as cultural icon in late James; Part III. Marcel Proust: 3. Proust, Bernard Lazare and the politics of pariahdom; 4. The community, the prophet and the pariah: relation in A la recherche du temps perdu; Part IV. Virginia Woolf: 5. 'Splinter' and 'mosaic': towards the politics of connection; 6. Of oceans and opposition: the action of The Waves; Part V. Gertrude Stein: 7. Steinian topographies: the making of America; 8. Writing the 'I' that is 'they': Gertrude Stein's community of the subject; Part VI. Conclusion; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a slim but formidable work deeply grounded in contemporary critical theory. Thanks to Berman's complex theoretical analysis, Woolf's vision of community emerges as a powerful and defiant rejection of homogeneity." Virginia Woolf Miscellany

"...there is much to be praised in and much to be gained from this book." Modern Philology

"Berman has written a passionately argued and scrupulously researched book." Modern Fiction Studies

"Timely....a compelling case..." symploke

"There is much to admire in Jessica Berman's ambitious book, not the least of which is her construction of a rich interdisciplinary context in the chapters on the writers. These sections are so compelling that they could stand on their own.... But what is most striking about this study is the way it brilliantly reflects in its structure the central theoretical concept of compearance—the being-in-common or affiliation of radically different writers all responding to the threat of a looming totalitarian nationalism. In Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Community, each writer is remade in this connection with the others." Woolf Studies Annual

"This is a most sophisticated and stimulating book, inspired by postcolonial inquiries into nationality and various political theories about the narrative construction of community." English Literature in Transition

"Jessica Berman's energetic study of Henry James, Proust, Wolf, and Stein brings together these trends and these highest of modernists for a reconsideration of how 'community' works politically and in narrative....Readers interested in the political and literary implications of this effort will profit from careful engagement with Berman's skillful readings and with her challenge to re-imagine the community of international modernism." Novel

"Original and well-argued." Choice

From the Publisher